


love is touching souls (surely you touched mine)

by ToAStranger



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, M/M, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-07
Updated: 2016-03-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 17:54:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 34,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5937535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToAStranger/pseuds/ToAStranger
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Voldemort is dead.  It's Christmas, and Harry's just opened a gift from Fred and George Weasley.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. knew your devils and your deeds

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to everyone who was so supportive during this story! 
> 
> Hopefully you enjoy the way it turned out. <3 <3 <3

“I’ll rewrite this whole life and this time there’ll be so much love,  
you won’t be able to see beyond it.”

—           Warsan Shire | “Backwards”

* * *

 

It is not so much a gift as it is a curse, no matter the description on the shiny foil packaging, no matter the vibrant clash of red and green or the burst of silver tinsel that comes with it.  While presents from the Weasley twins are usually met with caution, there was not enough care in the world that could have saved Harry Potter this mess.  Not even Fred or George could have predicted Harry would open his present on Christmas morning and vanish into thin air.

Though, perhaps vanish is not the proper word.  It was more of a loud _pop_ , like Apparition or perhaps gunfire, and a shower of sparks that left Harry Potter _not_ in splendid warmth by the hearth in the Weasley home, but instead ankle deep in snow at the center of Diagon Alley, cradling a small silver orb about the size of a snitch in his palms and frowning as it stops humming.

“What--?”

“ _Oi_!”

Harry jerks about, blinking rapidly at the stout woman that stands before him.  “Sorry.  Am I--?”

“Spare a Sickle for an old lady?” she holds out a hand to Harry, long fingers wrinkled and stained.  “It’s Christmas, you know.”

“Yes.  Right.  I—“ Harry is already patting his robes as the woman waits, fingers outstretched, expectant and shrewd.

“Move along, you hag.”

Harry goes still even as the old woman sneers over his shoulder at the man standing behind him.  Harry knows that voice, has heard it whispering in his head too many times not to.  The woman spits a number of curses at the pair of them before shuffling off, muttering to herself.  Harry is tempted to beckon her back, to _beg_ her back, but cannot make himself move to do so.

At his back, there is the sound of shuffling, of boots crunching in snow.  Harry realizes he’s trembling only when the small, silver ball slips from his fingers and into the snow at his feet.  The man at his back lets out a disgruntled noise, rounding Harry to crouch down and pluck the orb up.  He frowns down at it, turning it over in his fingers, and hums at the engraving.

“ _To take you where you are most needed_ ,” he reads, but Harry is too busy staring up at the man he killed over half a year ago.  “What a load of rubbish.  Is this a Zonko’s product?”

“Um.” Harry’s chest feels tight; the snow is clinging to his hair as it falls slowly overhead.

Glancing up, Tom Riddle smiles, charming and young, and offers the ball back to Harry.  “Here.”

“Thank you,” Harry mumbles, taking it blindly, eyes never leaving Tom’s face.

“You’re quite welcome,” Tom nods, bright gaze flitting over Harry as he tucks his hands casually into his robes.  “Say, do I know you?  You look quite familiar, like I’ve met you somewhere before.”

Harry barks out a laugh then, nearly doubling over at the hysterity.  In front of him, Tom shuffles back a step or two, lips pursing.

“Whether you’re mad or not, I don’t rightly enjoy being laughed at,” he sneers.

“No, no.  Of course you don’t.”  Harry waves a hand, half manic, and offers a smile.  “Forgive me.  I’m a bit out of sorts, and I think I might’ve landed in some kind of nightmare.”

“Nightmare?”

“Well, yes.  When you find yourself in the middle of Diagon Alley on Christmas Day with no other company than—than—than, well, your own cold driven madness, I’d say it’s a bit of a nightmare.”

Tom’s head tilts, eyes narrowing on Harry’s pale features before he nods, as if accepting Harry at his word.  “Well, if you’ve no other place to be, perhaps you’d like to accompany me to the Leaky Cauldron.  I’m sure the fire and a spot of food will do you some good.”

Another laugh catches in Harry’s throat, high and reedy, but he shrugs.  “Of course.  Why ever not?”

* * *

 

That’s how Harry finds himself seated at a table in the back of the Leaky Cauldron, sipping a drink that burns his tongue and throat on the way down, wondering just _how_ he managed to get into this position, sitting across from the future Dark Lord, in the first place.  He nurses his drink, mug warm in his hands, and quietly examines Tom as they wait for their food.

It is almost hard to believe that this man, only two years or so older than Harry, will become such a monster in the years to come.  He’s still handsome now.  Still young and charismatic; barely out of Hogwarts.  Harry wonders if he’s already made his third horcrux or if he’s already tracking down his fourth and fifth. 

Harry’s gaze strays to the newspaper Tom is skimming.  He spots the date and sighs, shoulders heavy, hoping that this is some dreadful joke gone wrong.  He certainly doesn’t want to be stuck in 1945 for the foreseeable future.  His gaze drops more, to the ring glinting on Tom’s finger, and Harry nearly chokes when he recognizes the trophy for what it really is.  Even from here he can hear it: Tom’s soul whispering to him from the gold the Resurrection Stone is set in.

He wants to laugh again.  Some part of him, some dark part, wants to reach across the table and wrap his fingers around Tom’s throat.  He doesn’t, but he wants to.  Wants to save hundreds of lives.  But he cannot imagine _that_ is what he is there for.

“Are you quite alright?”

Harry’s eyes drag back up to Tom’s face, and he offers a weak smile.  “Better.  Thanks.”

“Of course.”

His attention turns back to the newspaper.  Harry licks his lips, setting his cup down between them, and straightens.  He’s never been more thankful for the heat of his robes or the wool socks Molly had knit him.  It takes the edge off of the cold still in his bones.

They sit in quiet for a while longer.  Tom patient, and Harry unwilling to permit the older man the curiosity he is no doubt burning with.  It is not every day someone appears in the middle of the street with no recollection of how they got there, after all.

“Why are you being so kind?” Harry finally asks, his own curiosity unsatisfied.

“It’s Christmas,” Tom shrugs with an air of innocent good tidings.

Harry’s eyes narrow behind his glasses.  “And the old woman didn’t deserve a warm meal?”

Tom seems, for a moment, completely caught off guard.  Harry is certain people don’t usually see past Tom’s amiable grin.  “The old woman is out there begging every day.  She’s hardly interesting.”

“And you think I am, Tom?”  Harry asks skeptically.

Something a lot like satisfaction flares in Tom’s eyes, and he leans in sharply, voice low.  “If I didn’t before, I certainly do now.  I do not believe we made proper introductions.”

Harry very nearly kicks himself.

“Tom Riddle,” Tom says, holding out a hand across the table.  “And you are?”

“None of your business,” Harry deadpans.

“Oh, come now, none of that nonsense.”  Tom replies, tone pleasant like it’s a game, but there is something dangerous in his gaze.  “I _am_ buying you a meal, after all.  Helping a wayward traveler get on his feet.  I might even be persuaded into helping you find your way home, wherever that may be.”

“What makes you think I need your help?”

“I’m not an idiot,” Tom huffs, appearing quite put upon.  “You know me, and yet I haven’t the faintest recollection of _you_.  And when you appeared in the street, you seemed positively _lost_.”

“That does not mean I need your help,” Harry insists.

“No, but I am offering it.”  Tom extends his hand again.  “And at the very inexpensive price of a name.”

Harry eyes that hand.  Eyes it and wonders if it will feel the way touching Voldemort always felt: wholly overwhelming.

Reaching across the table, Harry places his palm tentatively against Tom’s.  There is a rush, a lot like touching a portkey as something tugs in Harry’s navel, but they do not move.  He can tell that Tom feels it too by the way his pupils dilate.  Fingers clench around Harry’s hand; he cannot help but feel he’s just made a deal with the devil.

“Harry,” he says.

“Harry?”

He nods, throat tight, palm slick against Tom’s.  “Just Harry.”

Something magic and strong snaps into place.  In Harry’s pocket, a small silver ball hums for a moment, gears turning.  In the next, it starts ticking.

* * *

 

“So tell me, _just Harry_ , where is it that you’re from?”

“Godric’s Hollow,” Harry breathes as they step out into the cold of the dim Christmas day, snow falling slow overhead, getting caught in his lashes.

They had passed their meal in relative silence.  Tom watched Harry eat, and Harry kept his eyes carefully down.  He was unwilling to let Tom into his mind again after so long.  Neither of them mentioned the agreement they’d made or what it might mean.

After they had finished, Tom looked at him for a long while before suggesting they head out for a walk.  Harry hadn’t had the wherewithal to decline.

“Did you attend Hogwarts?” Tom asks, their feet crunching against fresh snow.

“I did,” Harry nods.  “I do.”

“You’re a current student then?” Tom frowns down at him as they meander along.  “I don’t recall ever seeing you there.”

“Why would you?” Harry rebuts, stuffing his hands into the pockets of his robes and touching his wand, if only to assure himself it is still there; a habit from war years he has yet to shake.

“Well, I was Head Boy during my time there,” Tom tells him, and Harry gets the distinct and disturbing feeling that Tom is attempting to impress him.  “I would have noticed you.”

The notion makes Harry shudder.  “I’m in Gryffindor.  Half-blood.  I doubt that if you _did_ notice me, the memory would have lingered in your mind for long.”

Harry only stops when Tom falls back a few paces.  Turning, he looks back to Tom, brows up.  The older man is positively flummoxed, lips parted, gaze dubious.  Harry quite likes the looks, and for the first time since his abrupt departure from the Weasley home—and possibly even his own time—hours previous, Harry feels on even ground.

He has always been good at stumping the Dark Lord.

“ _You_?” Tom sneers.  “A _half-blood_?”

“Why so shocked?”

“You can’t be.  You’re too—“

“Interesting?”

“Powerful,” Tom admits with some level of difficulty, practically spitting the word.  “I can—I can _feel_ it.  I felt it the moment you appeared.”

Harry is very near flattered.  “ _You’re_ a half-blood.”

Tom’s wand is out before Harry can blink.  Long fingers catch him by the scruff of his collar, dragging him by his robes from the sparsely peopled road to one of the empty alleys that branch off of it.  Harry grunts as his back hits the brick wall of whatever shop Tom has squeezed them against, and he laughs when Tom points a wand in his face.

The set of Tom’s mouth is something akin to a snarl.  Harry suddenly has no doubts Tom has already broken his soul a third time.  The anger on his face is too raw for it to be otherwise.  For a moment, Harry aches for him and the disaster that awaits the wizarding world.

“You would do well to keep your mouth _shut_ about things you know not,” Tom hisses, casting a muffling charm over their persons.

“Or you’ll shut it for me?” Harry quips, but he is already pressing the tip of his own want to Tom’s side.  “I assure you, you have _tried_ and you will _fail_.”

Tom falters, eyes widening a fraction.

“Besides, I’m a lot less interesting without a mouth.”

Tom’s gaze searches Harry’s face.  There is a press in Harry’s mind; a pressure.  He instantly expels it and avoids direct eye contact.  Neither of them are willing to relent and drop their wands.

“Who _are_ you?”

“I told you: I’m just Harry.” Harry mutters, wincing as Tom’s wand digs in under his jaw.  “And _this_ is not exactly what I would consider _helping_.  Which I do believe is what I purchased with that name.  Don’t want to go back on a transaction like that, do we?”

“What harm would it do?” Tom replies shrewdly.

“You know as well as I do that something happened when we shook hands,” Harry huffs, a billow of heat fogging between them.  “I’m not willing to admit it was an Unbreakable, but are you actually going to risk something going wrong?”

The flex of Tom’s jaw is arresting.  Harry wonders how this man ever turns into a monster with red eyes.

“I do not like being kept in the dark, _Harry_.”

“Believe me, of that I am very much aware.”  Harry snorts.

Tom takes a deep breath.  “If I let you go, you _will_ tell me what I want to know.”

“No,” Harry grins.  “But I’ll tell you what _I_ want you to know.  And don’t even bother with the Imperius; it doesn’t work.”

Something in Tom’s face twitches.  Harry feels strangely heady—with power, with knowledge.

“Fine,” Tom jerks back.  “Tell me, then.”

Tucking his wand away, Harry adjusts his robes and smiles.  “Well, Tom, I guess the easiest way to put it is that I’m from the future.  _If_ this isn’t all some wacky dream the twins cooked up.  Which I’m still a quarter suspicious it might be.”

“The future,” Tom repeats, eyeing him a moment.  “ _My_ future?”

“Well, one of them.” Harry’s head bobs, expression scrunching.  “But I’ve never actually been very good at time things.  I once saved my own life without realizing it, you see.”

Tom seems to digest this.  Then, almost opposite of the threats and pandering for knowledge Harry expects, Tom fixes his own robes and gestures to the main road of Diagon Alley.

“I suppose that means you have no place to stay,” he says carefully as they step out, both wary of the other.

“I suppose it does.”

Tom hums, considering, and then smiles that charming smile of his.  “You’ll stay with me, then.”

Before Harry can protest, Tom takes his arm and they Disapparate away with a soft _crack_.

* * *

 

Harry lets out a strained grunt on impact.  If Tom didn’t have such a vice grip on his arm, Harry doesn’t doubt he would have fallen.

“You _bastard_ ,” Harry spits, anger twisting in him in a way he hasn’t felt in ages.  “You could have splinched me.”

“Yes, but the point is that I _didn’t_.” Tom says decidedly, eyes alight with something Harry is too busy fighting nausea to contemplate.  “Come on, then.”

He pulls Harry forward toward a short, wrought iron fence.  Harry stumbles after him blindly for a moment, until they’re passed the gate and moving down a narrow path toward a secluded but lavish two story home.  When he jerks away, Tom stops to look back at him.  Harry looks between the house and Tom, and Tom waits, expectant.

Harry realizes, distantly, that Tom has essentially kidnapped him.

“Where _are_ we?” Harry asks.

“Uxbridge,” Tom replies as if it’s obvious.

“ _Why_ are we in _Uxbridge_?”

“I live here.  Really, Harry, try to keep up.”

Teeth grit, Harry pulls his wand free of his robes.  He sends off a hex without a word, but Tom deflects with a laugh that’s tinged with disbelief, his eyes bright—perhaps in excitement at the prospect of someone being so unafraid of him or unimpressed with him that they would attempt to challenge him.

Head still swimming, Harry sends off another.  Then another.  Tom is just as quick in defending them off, their wands _whipping_ in the air.  As Harry shuffles forward, Tom moves back, giving ground until there is no more to give.  When Tom casts a particularly harsh curse back at Harry, Harry ducks it rather than counter it, scooping up a fistful of snow and hurling it toward Tom’s face.

Taken aback, Tom falters, stumbling a step and giving Harry the perfect opening.  He presses forward, wand swishing, and utters a soft _flipendo_ that sends Tom sprawling into the snow.  He lands with a grunt that Harry takes a great deal of pleasure in.

Slightly breathless, Harry draws close, wand still pointed at Tom’s chest.  There is a _sectumsempra_ lingering, bitter, at the back of his mouth.  From the ground, Tom glares up, a flush high on his cheeks that Harry rightly reads as embarrassment.  He takes a great deal of pleasure in that too.

“You’re fast,” Tom mutters, propping up onto his elbows, wavy fringe falling into his boyish face.  “You going to kill me now?”

“Not for many years to come,” Harry says glibly, wand dropping before he steps over where Tom lay.  “This your place then?”

Tom’s nostrils flare, and even with his back turned, Harry can sense Tom’s rage.  “ _Yes_.”

“It’s nice.  Homier than I’d expect.”  Harry tips his head up, taking in the brickwork, knowing that Tom undoubtedly wants to cast something nasty his way, but also aware that Tom’s curiosity burns brighter than his anger.  “Oh, and Tom?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Tom hisses, seething as he shoves to his feet.

“Warn me the next time you try and Side-Along me,” Harry glances back at him.  “Or I won’t just use first year hexes.”

* * *

 

They’re inside by the time Tom finally manages to unlock his jaw.  He’s been gritting his teeth in childish silence that Harry cannot help but find fitting in the young Dark Lord.  He’s used to getting his way without consequence.  If Harry can teach him anything while he’s here for however long, it will be that actions _always_ have consequences.

Even if it takes seventeen years. 

“Dawley!” Tom shouts, shrugging out of his robes.

The house elf _pops_ into existence right in the foyer, blinking up at Tom slowly.  He bows, old body shaking, and glances at Harry with beady eyes.

“Master has brought a guest.”

“Yes, master has.  Get us some tea, would you?”  Tom sneers, hanging his robs in a nearby closet with a flick of his wand, then looking to Harry expectantly.

Harry pulls his robes off, careful to keep hold of his wand and of the little ball that brought him here.  The house elf clears his throat.

“Where would the master like to take his tea?” he asks.

“In the sitting room, by the fire.”  Tom snaps.  “Make it quick and stoke the fire while you’re at it.  It’s bloody freezing.”

Harry chokes on a laugh, trying and failing to cover it up when Tom gives him a foul look.  Tom is still wet from his gallivant in the snow.  Lips pressed tight, Harry watches as the house elf eyes him again before bowing and vanishing the same way he came.

His focus, then, falls on Tom.  “You have a house elf.”

“Yes.  A gift from a friend, of sorts.  Dreadful little creatures, but useful to have around.”  Tom snaps his fingers, hand out for Harry’s robes.

Jaw ticking tight, Harry steps close, shoving his robes against Tom’s chest with a considerable amount of roughness.  “And a good status symbol, I’m sure.  For the pure bloods.  Never mind that they’re living, breathing, _feeling_ creatures.”

As Harry goes to pull away, Tom catches his wrist, a familiar snarl set on his handsome features.  “I’ll have you know, I’ve killed for _far_ less.”

“Believe me,” Harry’s face sets in a similar anger.  “I am _very_ aware of what you’re capable of, Tom Riddle.”

Tom’s eyes flit rapidly over Harry’s features, cataloguing them.  He lets Harry go with reluctance, then gestures with his chin.

“The sitting room is just down the hall.”

Harry goes.  He realizes that he’s shaking by the time he reaches the room.  It takes him a second to gather himself, anger still like vitriol in his veins.  He itches; something in him itches, scratching behind his eyes, and making his temples throb.

Shedding his glasses, Harry pinches the bridge of his nose.  He has no idea how or why this has happened.  He knows that, when he gets back, the first thing he’s going to do is hex the red out of Fred and George’s hair.  Sighing, he shoves his glasses back on and looks about the room.

It’s not small but not vast like Harry expected.  The walls are lined with books, and Harry gravitates toward them, wondering what the young Dark Lord read in his free time.  There is a large couch and two wingbacks over by the fire, which filled the otherwise dim room with light.  On a coffee table placed in front of the settee, there is a board of wizard chess pieces that looks well used.

Focus falling back to the shelves, Harry skims over the titles.  He wonders, briefly, if he’ll find Tom’s diary on these shelves.

From behind him, Tom clears his throat.  Harry turns, fingers dropping from the worn leather spine of a book.  Tom is watching him, leaning in the threshold, hands tucked into the pockets of his trousers.  He’s the epitome of casual charm.  His sleeves are rolled up, his hair still disheveled, and Harry is struck by how absolutely _normal_ Tom looks until he meets his eyes.

With the fire light dancing in them, he looks very much like the Lord Voldemort Harry grew to know so closely.  For a second, he contemplates ending it all, right there, so that whatever futures lies ahead of this world, there will be no Voldemort there to tarnish it.  Then Tom tilts his head, curious and _human_ , and those thoughts are gone.

If this world is real, if this place is not a dream, Harry will do for Tom what no one else ever had.  Harry will give him a chance to save himself.

“Have a seat,” Tom offers, and Harry moves over to one of the wingbacks by the fire. 

Tom follows, taking the spot across from him.  For a while, the light plays on their faces and the occasional _crack_ is the only sound.  Their tea arrives and they do not touch it.

“Where are you from?” Tom finally asks, an echo of an earlier question.

“Godric’s Hollow.”

“ _When_?” Tom clarifies, jaw clenching.

“1998.”

The breath in Tom leaves him all at once.  “Why are you here?”

Harry opens his mouth, only to close it again.  He pulls the small ball from his pocket, eyes drawn to the inscription and the seven moon waning across the surface.

“I was needed here,” Harry mutters, thumbing over the words with a frown.

“Why here?” Tom presses.  “Why now?”

Harry blinks up at Tom, brow pinching.  “Why were you in Diagon Alley today, Tom?”

“That’s not any of your business.”

“Then I cannot answer you.”

Tom looks away, fingers curling into the armrests of their chair.  Harry waits.  Watches.

“Outside, you implied that I… die.”  Tom crosses his legs.  “You kill me.”

Harry’s mouth twitches, his smile wry and sad.  “Yes.”

Tom returns it with a bitter one of his own.  “It won’t last.”

“It will,” Harry nods, a solemn sagaciousness about him.  “I destroy all of your horcruxes too.”

The noise that follows is deafening.

* * *

 

In the wake of destruction, Harry sits patiently and waits for the tide to calm.  By the time it does, the fire is out, the tea set shattered, and Tom is trembling across from him, the room around them nearly torn asunder.

Tom is livid, and having pushed to his feet in his fit of rage, glares down at Harry where the young man is sat.  But beyond the anger there is a blind terror.  Harry cannot bring himself to fault Tom for it.

“You’re _lying_.”

“I’m not.”

“You _are_.”

Harry leans forward, frustrated, teeth bared.  “You’re an egotistic bastard, Tom Riddle.  You _have_ and _will_ find your own end in it.”

A wand levels at his face.  Harry can see the curse, viridian and noxious, lingering on the tip of Tom’s tongue. 

“Do it.”

Tom hisses, as if struck.  “Do not _tempt_ me.”

“Do it, then.” Harry pushes to his feet, still a full head shorter than Tom.  “It will not change what has already happened or what is to come.”

The wand wavers.  Tom is still shaking.  Still terrified.  The snarl on his lips drops.

“I _cannot_ die,” he insists, desperate in a way Harry has only seen him once, there at the very end.

“We _all_ die, Tom.  It’s just a part of living.”

The harsh set of Tom’s features returns.  “Then I guess you’ve lived.”

The curse is just as green as the time before.  And just as green as the time before that.  It does not rebound, but it does not strike home.  Instead, the weighty magic of their hands clasped tight in agreement snaps and sends them both flying.

* * *

 

Harry wakes to the sound of birds chirping and with a massive crick in his neck.  He groans, shaking his head slowly as he pushes up from the floor, laying on top of a scattered mess of books and debris, and realizes the birdsong is actually just a high pitched ringing in his ears.

He blinks, vision blurred and glasses crooked.  It takes him a long time to realize where he is and who the man across from him is.  He does not bother to fumble for his wand as he slumps back against the oak floors.  Tom echoes his groan with one of his own.

“You know,” Harry croaks, coughing at the pressure in his chest.  “It actually gets old.  The whole Killing Curse thing.”

Across the parlor, Tom grunts.

“Yeah,” Harry breathes, eyes drooping.  “Me too.”


	2. drawn to those ones that ain't afraid

To be is terrifying and it’s okay to fear. To be afraid. I don’t think anyone ever told you that.

—           P.D. | “you are not fragile, still handle with care”

* * *

 

The day after Christmas day starts much like Christmas day started: in a bed that is not his own, in a house that is not his own, but with the added bonus of complete disorientation.  Harry hates it almost instantly.  Which, considering he has just woken, is quite the feat he never had any aspirations of accomplishing.

Outside, the sky is too bright.  The windows that line the east wall of the room he is in do nothing to shelter him from dawn.  He has to cover his own eyes with a heavy arm in order to find any kind of peace in the early hours of the day.  However, that peace does not last long.

“Master wishes for his guest to join him in the kitchens,” Dawley announces after _popping_ in without preamble.

Harry huffs, shifting beneath sheets that are far too soft.  “Master can bugger off for five more minutes.”

There is a pause.  Tom’s house elf shuffles about, obviously unsure, and Harry’s laugh comes strained.

“Tell him I’ll be down when I’m good and ready or he can come collect me himself.”  Harry tells Dawley, much to the old elf’s chagrin.  “And if he tries anything untoward, feel free to pop back up here to get away.”

“Untoward, master’s guest?”

“Unnecessarily cruel.”

“Dawley lives to serve his master.”

There is another soft _pop_.  Harry sighs.

“Of course you do.”

The quiet lulls Harry back into a drowsy haze.  It is not quite sleep, but it is close to it.

Some part of him is quite aware of the state of things.  He’s sleeping in a bed in Tom Riddle’s home.  A bed he doesn’t remember climbing into on his own.  But he’s still very much dressed, his wand still in his pocket, and he’s far too tired to be moved from this bed that is far more comfortable than any bed has a right to be.

Blearily, he recalls Tom trying to kill him.  Again.  Or perhaps for the first time.  He was never more grateful to be right about their accidental vow back at the Leaky Cauldron.  It had protected him just the way he’d predicted— _hoped_ —and undoubtedly had Tom seething.

Harry considers it a bit of a triple win then—because now he has the most powerful Dark wizard of his time locked into a position where he has to help Harry return home or risk the consequences.

The sharp knock on the bedroom door stirs him.  Tom doesn’t wait for a reply, stepping into the room, shoes clipping the hardwood floor as he paces over to the bed.

“Get _up_ ,” he hisses, pulling the down comforter away, and Harry shudders at the wash of cold that seeps in through his jeans and jumper. 

“Oh, good.” Harry drolls, fumbling for his glasses.  “You’re a morning person.”

“If I could kill you, I _would_.”

“I know.”

Tom shoves Harry’s glasses into his hand.  Placing them carefully on his nose, Harry blinks up at Tom and offers a wry, sleepy grin.  The expression of pure disdain he receives in reply makes Harry positively giddy.

“Thank you.”

“You’ll join me for breakfast,” Tom insists.

“Will I?”

“ _Yes_.”

“Ah, well.” Harry gestures to the door.  “Lead the way then.”

Tom’s careful, blank expression wavers.  “You’re _infuriating_.”

“I promise you,” Harry beams.  “That does not change in the future.”

With exceptional control, Tom takes a breath and turns away.  Harry watches, taking in the tight line of Tom’s shoulders, and nearly dissolves into a fit of childish laughter.  This is the most excitement he’s seen in months.

Instead of giving into his base instincts, Harry pushes from the bed and pads after Tom.  He follows him all the way downstairs, across the small manor Tom has claimed for himself, and into a room nearly entirely made up of windows.

There is a white table, set with a vast and elaborate breakfast on china so fine Harry nearly feels bad.  It all smells fresh and good; Harry takes the seat Tom gestures to and snatches up a piece of toast, ravenous.  As he butters it, he glances outside at the blue skies and the world blanketed in white.  Tom pours him a cup of tea.

“This is nice,” Harry says, sipping it.

“Small talk?”

“Well, you tried to murder me the last time we talked about anything heavier than the weather.”  Harry sets his tea cup down.

Tom hardly looks chided.  “How are you feeling?”

Biting into his toast, Harry regards Tom with a lofty dryness.  “More or less right as rain.  Magic really is brilliant, isn’t it?”

Tom hums, noncommittal, and then leans forward as Harry takes another sip of tea.  “Tell me, Harry.  What is my full name?”

“Tom Marvolo Riddle,” Harry replies instantly, blinking and licking his lips.  “Unless you mean Lord Voldemort.”

There is a gleam in Tom’s eyes.  “And what is _your_ full name?”

“Harry James Potter,” Harry says and then instantly snaps his mouth shut, teeth clacking painfully.

“ _Potter_ ,” Tom spits as he slumps back in his chair, the anger he’d been trying to shroud blossoming over his fine features.

“You _dosed_ me.”

“With my own brew,” Tom nods.  “How do _you_ , a mere _child_ , defeat me?”

For a moment, Harry’s jaw works, but even with his admittedly limited skills in Occlumency he can’t _not_ answer.  “Which time?” he grits out instead.

Tom’s nostrils flare.  “The _final_ time.”

“To be completely _honest_ ,” Harry intones with a heavy lilt of sarcasm.  “That last time is your own fault.”

“ _How_?” Tom demands, fist pounding on the table, jarring the lovely set up.

“Your spell rebounds, Tom.  Your own curse kills you.”  Harry breathes.  “You are you own demise.  Almost every time.”

Tom goes quiet.  He’s shaking again, but at least this time there is no mess to clean up after. 

“How many times?” Tom asks, tone dull.

It takes Harry a second.  “At least three.”

“And you destroy _all_ of my--?”

“Yes.”  Harry nods his head to the ring on Tom’s hand.  “Including that one.  With a bit of help.”

It’s terrifying, staring your own end in the face.  Harry would know.

He had gone willingly to his, after all.

So when Tom shoves away from the table to storm off, Harry cannot blame him.  That doesn’t stop him from opening his big mouth, though.

“No more questions, then?”

The hex that follows misses and shatters his tea cup.

* * *

 

He knows that Tom needs time to cool down.  It gives him the chance to let the veritaserum Tom slipped into his tea wear off.  He finishes an ample breakfast after making sure it was the only the tea that had been tainted.

When he’s full, he gathers the dishes and seeks out the kitchen.  There is a harshness to it that contrasts with the rest of the house.  It is obvious that Tom doesn’t spend much time in the sterile, near colorless room despite its vastness.  The white tiles are cool against his feet, and Harry’s nose wrinkles at the knowledge that there is probably asbestos in the floors.  The walls are equally as white, and the cabinets are painted a similar shade.  The only things of color are the large work table at the center of the room and the immense brass sink.  Both items stick out sorely, ruddy and copper, even in conjunction with the black handles and old black stove tucked against the far wall.

There is a window above the sink and a door that must lead into the side yard made nearly entirely of glass that allows light to fill the room.  Harry is grateful for it as he makes his way over to the sink, carrying what dishes he can, and floating what he can’t behind him.  He cranks the faucet on and the water sputters from the pipes, spitting out the head like an angry beast.  Harry nearly laughs, wondering if the thing has ever been used at all.  Dawley must just magically clean everything; he cannot imagine Tom lifting a finger when he’s got his own house elf to do it.

Harry waits until the water fills the basin, warming it with a soft charm before setting the bare dishes in with care.  He steps away to scour the cabinets, brows pinching as he lets the dishes soak.  There is a soft _pop_ behind him, and Harry startles and turns.

“What is master’s guest up to?” Dawley asks in his cracking voice, eyes narrowed.

“Looking for something to wash the dishes with,” Harry confesses absently, already turn back to an open cupboard.  “You wouldn’t happen to have any detergent would you?”

“Dawley does the cleaning.”

“Yeah,” Harry sighs, rocking down from his toes.  “I thought not.”

“ _Dawley_ does the dishes.”

“Yes, yes, I know.” Harry turns about again.  “But if I don’t keep busy, I’ll go positively batty, and this is a _much_ better alternative to me bothering your master, no?”

Dawley frowns, but nods slowly.  “What does master’s guest be needing?”

“Baking soda, if you have it.  Vinegar and salt, if you don’t.”  Harry is already moving back toward the sink, stripping his jumper over his head so that he is in nothing but jeans and cotton shirt.  “And wash rags.”

“Dawley gets these for master’s guest,” Dawley bows.

“Thank you.”

His gratitude goes unnoticed, or perhaps unwelcomed.  But Dawley returns a moment later, _popping_ into place on the counter next to the sink, a large bag of baking soda in his arms and rags in his hands.

Harry beams and takes them from the waddling house elf, setting to work on the dishes.  From his side, Dawley watches as Harry makes a paste from the water and baking soda, scrubbing the china clean with slow, circular motions.  Biting the inside of his cheek, Harry swallows down his amusement at the soft sounds Dawley keeps making—a constant balance between disgust, awe, and curiosity.

When he finishes the plate, Harry offers it to the house elf, smile small.  “Care to dry them and put them away for me, Dawley?  I could use the help.”

Dawley instantly snatches up the dish, hesitating a second before plucking up an unused wash rag.  He watches Harry start to clean another plate and mimics his motions as he dries his own.  As he does so, he mutters to himself about _master’s strange guest_ , reminding Harry of Kreacher back home.  The first time Harry had tried to wash his own dishes this way at Grimmauld Place, the Black family house elf had nearly spit fire.  Harry found it endlessly endearing.

His focus falls back to the dishes.  Something in him, something big, aches for Kreacher and Grimmauld Place and his friends.  He should have spent Christmas with them, with the Weasleys at the Burrow, and with his godson at Andromeda’s later that afternoon.  Twenty-four hours and Harry is already homesick.  Perhaps it is just the fear of not getting home that has him so morose.

They are halfway through the breakfast dishes, Dawley and he, when Tom finds them and interrupts Harry’s melancholy with a gentile cough.  Dawley is already bowing.  Harry turns, wet cloth and teacup in hand, and looks at Tom in his pressed slacks, his white dress shirt, and his shiny black shoes from where he’s lingering in the doorway.  He’s got his hands shoved in his pockets, no doubt fingering his wand—the wand that is brother to Harry’s—and his expression is pinched as he watches them.

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Solving world hunger,” Harry replies, just to prove the veritaserum is no longer in effect.  “Would you like to join us?”

Tom’s mouth curls in disdain.  “Absolutely not.”

“Suit yourself, then.”

“Dawley,” Tom snaps as Harry turns his back to him.  “Leave us.”

“Yes, master.”

He sets the bowl down on the counter and disappears without another word.  Harry keeps washing.

Silence falls between them, no words shared, the only noise is the soft lap of water and the quiet, constant motion of Harry’s washcloth against the china.  Behind him, Tom sighs, and his shoes clip against the tiles as he makes his way over.

“ _What_ are you doing?”

“Dishes.  What’s it look like?”

Tom is a rigid presence at Harry’s right.  He glares down at Harry’s hands, his own still in his pockets.  He looks about ready to vibrate out of his skin.

“You’re a… _powerful_ wizard,” Tom spits, as if it pains him to admit it, despite already having done so the previous day.  “Even without a house elf, why bother to do it by hand?”

“It’s relaxing.  Meditative.” Harry shrugs a shoulder.  “You should give it a go sometime.  Might help with that temper.”

Tom’s hand darts out, catching Harry’s wrist in a grip so tight the bones groan.  “I will go out and kill every single Potter there is.”

“Is that really what you came in here to talk about?” Harry frowns; grimaces.

“ _Yes_.”

Humming, Harry searches Tom’s face.  “Okay.  Good luck, then.”

The fingers round his wrist wind tighter.  Harry has to drop the wash rag into the water.

“ _Why_ are you not afraid of me?”

“I spent nearly half my life afraid of you, Tom.  But then I found out there wasn’t much to be afraid of.”  Harry says, tone soft, words earnest.  “You see, we’re a lot alike, you and I.  I was just given chances that you weren’t.  And I made decisions that you didn’t.”

Tom does not let him go.  His hand is big, his fingers long, against Harry’s skin.  He wonders if he’ll bruise.

“Besides,” Harry grins, but it’s halfhearted at best.  “Even if you do go slaughter every Potter you meet, it won’t change _my_ future.  And it will not save you.”

“How do you figure?” Tom whispers, an intimidating presence towering over Harry, crowding into Harry’s space.

“If you did, I would remember.  Or cease to exist.  Or something like that.”  Harry frowns to himself.  “Like I said, I’m not the best with time travel things.”

“Right,” Tom mutters dubiously, gaze dropping, thoughtful.  “And you have to get back to your time.  To _your_ future.”

“Yes.  And you’ve sworn to help me.”

“Yes,” Tom breathes, eyes intent on Harry’s face again.  “Yes, I suppose I have.”

There is a moment.  A lull.  Then Tom yanks Harry away from the sink.

“Come on, then.”

“Wait.  What?  Where are we--?”

“We’re going to figure this out and get you out of my hair, so that I can set things right.”

“Set things _right_?  What?  Like the demise of the wizarding world?”

Tom scoffs, as if the idea had never occurred to him, as if he had never had aspirations of grandeur.  “No.  I couldn’t care less about the state of the wizarding world, right now.  I’m talking about my _immortality_.”

“Right,” Harry rolls his eyes.  “Of course you are.”

* * *

 

It’s well into the evening by the time Harry is hungry again.  It is sort of achingly familiar, the set up Tom creates for them in his parlor full of books, reminiscent to Harry from his days in Hogwarts’ library, researching Nicolas Flamel, the Chamber of Secrets, all of the feats of his childhood.  Harry gets the distinct impression that Tom, his nose buried in a book older than either of their grandfathers, is in his element.  He wonders if, had Tom been less ambitious, he would have ended up sorted into Ravenclaw.

Every now and then, Tom will pause in his reading in order to jot something in an old, leather bound journal that looks a _lot_ like the diary Harry stabbed with a Basilisk fang his second year.  Tom’s nose wrinkles when he does this; the most expressive part of his face, Harry has decided.  It can range anywhere from confusion to satisfaction, and Harry quite likes it: Tom’s nose.  Voldemort would have been much more interesting with one.

It has been a good twenty minutes since Harry stopped reading.  After a day of it and almost unending silence, his head has started to hurt.  Instead, he watches Tom work across from him, the coffee table between them stacked with books, the small silver orb gifted to him by the Weasley twins set at the center of the mess.  The fire in the hearth crackles with life as they toil away.

Tom had spent a long time working with the orb.  He’d examined it so thoroughly—had nearly torn the thing apart to see what made it tick—that Harry had almost felt the need to defend the poor trinket’s honor.  While he did not spend too much time on the inscription, aside from the importance of the word “needed” versus “wanted” and the semantics therein, he spent most of his research on the seven waning moons along its cool, metal surface.

“Seven,” he’d muttered.  “Why seven?”

“Tom,” Harry had chided.  “You said it yourself: seven is the most powerfully magical number.”

Tom has stared at him, a wrinkle between his brows that Harry _definitely_ hadn’t found endearing.  “How--?”

“It’s not important,” Harry shook his head.  “But just so you know?  Splitting your _soul_ seven times sends you completely round the twist.”

Harry hadn’t mentioned the fact that Harry had been his seventh. _Wouldn’t_ mention it.  The fact that Harry was, at one point, a vessel for part of Voldemort’s soul is not important to their research.  And someday it might save another Harry Potter’s life.

They’d gotten back to it after that.  Tom had cast him a number of narrow eyed, suspicious glances for a while until the research consumed him in a way Harry had only seen it do to Hermione.  Now, though, Harry is hungry, tired, and has a headache the size of a hippogriff building up behind his eyes.

Pulling his glasses off, Harry huffs and scrubs a tired hand over his face.  “I’m starved.”

“Go eat something then.”

Harry peers over at him through blurred eyes.  “Are you honestly telling me you aren’t the least bit hungry?”

“I’m _telling you_ ,” Tom mutters in that dry tone he’s taken to using with Harry’s inanities, “that I have _far_ more important things to do than _eat_.  Mainly, getting rid of _you_.”

Harry blinks at him.

Looking his way, Tom’s brows go up.  “Or would you prefer to be stuck here?”

“Right,” Harry says slowly, already shoving his glasses back onto his face and pushing to his feet.  “Come on.  Up.”

“Excuse me?” Tom sits straight in his seat.

“You heard me.  _Up_.  Or do I have to come over there and drag you out of that chair?”

“You’ll do no such thing.”

Leaning back, Tom sets his books aside.  His chin tilts up, all defiance, and in the fire light there is that chilling gleam of red in his eyes.  Harry shudders but stands his ground.

Folding his hands neatly in his lap, Tom crosses his legs.  “I guarantee that if you try, we’ll see if that vow extends to the Cruciatus curse.”

Not in any mood to be tortured, Harry holds up his hands.  “Fine.  But just so you know, the brain functions at a higher level when it has something to fuel it.  If you need me, I’ll be in the kitchen.”

“You could just have Dawley bring you something,” Tom calls, innocent as can be, but Harry is already walking away.

“And risk you dosing me again?  Hardly likely.”

* * *

 

In the kitchen, Harry sighs heavily and leans against the bench.  He pulls his glasses off again, hissing at the dull ache of his head.  He’s had much worse, but that doesn’t make the pain any better.  Closing his eyes, he pinches the bridge of his nose and bends, elbows resting on the sturdy wood of the worktop.

He doesn’t know how long he is like that.  He’s very close to being asleep on his feet when Tom joins him.

As always, Harry is acutely attuned to Tom’s presence.  The second he walks in, he _knows_.  He wonders briefly if Tom is as aware of Harry as Harry is of him.  He sort of hopes he is, if only so he doesn’t have to suffer the hypersensitivity of it alone.  Voldemort has always made Harry feel a bit like a livewire.

He doesn’t expect the bottle that Tom presses into his hand, though.  He jumps, in fact, much to Tom’s delight and amusement, before squinting down at the small vial from behind his spectacles without putting them back on.

“What’s this?” he asks.

“For your head.”

Harry barks out a laugh and offers it back.  “No, thanks.”

Bristling, Tom crosses his arms.  “Oh, please.  If I were going to _dose you_ , as you so crassly put it, or _poison_ you, I would not be so overt.”

“Oh, that’s _ever_ so comforting.”

“Drink it or don’t.  It doesn’t really matter to me.”  Tom frowns, already headed for the parlor again, and Harry actually feels _guilty_.

“Tom,” he calls and winces, feeling foolish and ashamed all at once.  “Thank you.”

Tom falters, twisting about sharply.  “Beg pardon?”

“Thank you,” Harry repeats with a heavy sigh.  “I know it isn’t easy.  _This_ isn’t easy, for either of us.  The fact that you haven’t tried to kill me again yet is a pretty _massive_ step.”

“I try to kill you a lot, I take it.”

Harry winces again, palming the back of his head.  “Um.  Frequently might be an understatement.  Since before I was born is more accurate.”

Tom makes a soft, disgruntled noise—at the notion of trying to kill an unborn child or at the implication of constant defeat, Harry doesn’t know.  “Your point?”

“My point,” Harry takes a deep breath.  “Is that it’s scary.  Knowing you’re going to die.  Facing your murderer.  It’s scary, and I get it.”

“You speak from experience,” Tom mutters, and it isn’t a question.  He’s looking at Harry much the same way he had in Diagon Alley, like he’s a puzzle that needs unpiecing.

“Well,” Harry chokes on a laugh, gesturing to Tom with a haphazard hand.  “Yeah.”

There’s that quiet again.  That quiet Harry is quickly coming to associate with Tom’s discomfiture.  With his reassessment of some new fact Harry has given him.  It does not last long.

“Don’t drink that on an empty stomach,” he says as he turns from Harry.  “There’s a bath across from your room.  I’ve had Dawley get some clothes for you if only to get you out of that _absurd_ jumper.”

Harry blinks down at the sweater Molly Weasley had knit him for Christmas, all Gryffindor red and gold.  He smiles and goes to say thanks again, but Tom is already gone.


	3. you taste so bitter (and you taste sweet)

With such a hell in your heart and your head, how can you live? How can you love?

—            Fyodor Dostoevsky | _The Brothers Karamazov_

* * *

 

The third day proceeds much like the second day.  Harry wakes, sunlight streaming in through the windows, and turns over to bury beneath the blankets.  He only catches perhaps twenty more minutes of sleep before the comforter is torn away from him, and he is left shivering on the sheets.

“Damn it, Ginny.” Harry grumbles, pushing up onto his elbows and fumbling his glasses on.

He blinks up at Tom Riddle, who’s looking down at him like he’s some kind of insect he’s contemplating squishing.  “Who’s Ginny?”

“My ex-girlfriend,” Harry says first, going flush as Tom’s eyes stray down.

He’s half naked.  He prefers sleeping in just his boxers these days, and the sheets here are soft and supple against his skin.

“My friend,” Harry says second, hating how hot his face suddenly feels.

Tom hums.  “Come to breakfast.  We have work to do.”

He leaves and Harry flops back onto the bed with a groan.

* * *

 

Downstairs, they take breakfast in the same windowed room as before.  Harry piles eggs and sausage onto a piece of toast and moans around a large bite.  Across the table, Tom sips his tea and watches.  Harry is too busy with the food to notice.

It is another clear day.  The yard outside is still heavy with snow.  Harry yearns for the Weasleys, for Hermione, for his young godson.  He knows that they would be outside already, trampling through the snow, horsing about the way children do.  It strikes him that he missed Teddy’s first Christmas; he has to set his food down at the thought and the lance of pain that follows.

“Not to your satisfaction?” Tom asks, brows drawn together.

“No, it’s fine.”  Harry shakes his head.  “Just not… not all that hungry anymore.”

Tom hums, dubious, and drinks his tea.  “Well, give it a moment.  I’m sure your appetite will come back.  Growing boys and all that.”

“I’m eighteen.  Not much growing left.”

Tom pauses.  “What year are you at Hogwarts?”

“Seventh,” Harry mutters, leaning back in his chair and fidgeting with the long sleeves of his shirt, feeling stiff in the time’s fashion.  “Well, eighth.”

“Eighth?” Tom frowns.

“Yes, well, I spent what _should_ have been my seventh year running from a mad man and hunting down his remaining soul fragments.”  Harry plucks up a glass of orange juice, his throat suddenly tight, his eyes on the table.

Across from him, Tom’s nose wrinkles.  He sets his teacup down in its saucer, prim posture fading so that he can lean in and catch Harry’s gaze.

“For what it’s worth,” Tom says, his voice almost rough in its earnestness.  “I am… sorry.”

Lips parting, Harry stares at him, something like hope blossoming in his chest.  It is a warm, unfurling sensation akin to the heart pounding rush that comes from catching a snitch.

Then he remembers who Tom is.  How charming he can be.  How deceptive, manipulative, _charismatic_.  He remembers who Tom is, who he will become, and all those that will fall at his feet.

Stiffening, Harry withdraws, pulling away from the space Tom had so easily invaded.  “What are you sorry for?”

“For what I put you through,” Tom says but he’s already frowning again as Harry moves away from him.

“You haven’t put me through anything.”

“But I did,” Tom insists.  “But I _do_.”

“Then _don’t_.”

Tom’s nose has wrinkled again—offended, angry, confused.  “Why will you not accept my apology?”

“Because it is an empty one.  A _hollow_ one.”

The sharpness of Harry’s tone does something to Tom’s posture.  He sits upright, legs crossing, hands folding in his lap.  Harry recognizes it from the night previous, and prepares himself for someone less like Tom and more like Voldemort.  He wonders if there is a liminal space between them that might reveal who the man really is.

Harry takes a deep breath.  Not for the first time in his life, Harry pities Tom.  Tom who cannot understand, who _will_ not understand what it is to properly feel remorse.  Tom who was raised without the love Harry found in his friends, in the memory of his parents.  Tom who hasn’t _known_ understanding or empathy or love.  Tom who will not let himself know those things.

“Who are you to say what it is I mean?” Tom asks, tone clipped.

Harry takes another breath and prays for patience.  “Do you feel sorry for what you did to your father?  To Myrtle?  To whoever you killed to turn Rowena’s diadem into your horcrux?”

Tom is rigid.  Unmoving.  There is shock in his eyes, warring with his anger.  It loses.  “Why would I?” he asks.

“Because those are the things you _have_ done, Tom.  _Those_ are the sins you must atone for.  Not the ones you have yet to commit.”

“You say that as if I will undoubtedly commit them,” Tom’s eyes grow cold.  “You condemn me for things I have yet to do.”

“I _condemn_ you for what you _have done_ and yet show no remorse for,” Harry hisses.  “I _condemn_ you for the things that will turn you from what is only a cold callousness now into a mad _cruelness_ in the future.”

Tom’s eyes narrow.  He opens his mouth and Harry presses on.

“If you _truly_ are sorry for the actions you haven’t committed yet, you _must_ understand that your _past_ actions were wrong in the first place.”  Harry tells him in a rush.  “You _must_ recognize this or else doom yourself to repeat history.”

Tom’s mouth presses thin.  His dark eyes, still narrowed in wary caution, flit down over where Harry is taking slow, measured breathes.  His legs uncross and he leans forward again, fingers unlacing from his lap so that his hands can rest on the table between them.

“You believe this?” he asks, a kind of manicism about him.  “You believe that if I learn… _remorse_ for the things I’ve done to obtain my immortality, to obtain my vengeance upon my father, that I can avoid the future?”

Harry hesitates, and then nods.  “Yes.  Yes, I believe it.”

“How will remorse for past actions prevent my future ones?”

“Remorse is painful.  You won’t want to put yourself in a position to feel it again.”

“I don’t understand.”  Tom frowns.  “If I do not feel it, how can I learn to?”

Harry searches his face.  There is genuine curiosity there.  Genuine desperation.

Whether it be because he wants to understand, Harry does not know.  Either way, Harry _does_ know that Tom, in all his pride, is willing to ask.  To _try_.  And that is more than Harry could ever hope for.

His chairs screeches as he drags round the small table to press into Tom’s space.  Tom blinks at him, rapidly, moving to pull back, but Harry already has hold of one of his hands.  He pulls Tom’s right hand to him, placing the palm over his heart as he reaches out to mirror the action with his own hand on Tom’s chest.  Tom is frowning again; this time out of confusion.

“Do you feel that?”

“Your heart?”

Harry nods.  “Imagine if it stopped.  Right here, right now.  Imagine if my heart stopped.”

Tom’s fingers twitch under Harry’s hand.

“How would you feel?” Harry asks.

“Relieved to be rid of you,” Tom intones dully.

Harry gives him a sour look.  “How would you _really_ feel?”

“Frustrated,” Tom confesses.  “Angry.”

Harry presses.  “ _Why?_ ”

“Because you have not told me what I want to know.”

“Good,” Harry nods.  “Now how would you feel if you were the _cause_ of my heart stopping?  If it was your fault?”

“Frustrated.  Angry.” 

Harry waits.

“…at myself.”

“Why?”

“Because I _need_ you.”  Harry falters, and Tom clarifies.  “I need you to help me understand what I don’t.  If you died, at my hands, I would never understand.  And it would be all my fault.  And I need you.”

Tom’s fingers curl into the neatly pressed shirt Harry is wearing.  Swallowing thickly, Harry watches fascination bloom over Tom’s face.

“Because you have a power I know not of,” Tom breathes, canting his head forward, and Harry jerks back.

“Good,” Harry stands, brushing the wrinkles out of his clothes.  “Yes, that’s—Good.  Lesson one: done.”

“Lesson _one_?” Tom looks up at him bemusedly.

“Think before you act,” Harry nods.  “Remind yourself that every person you come across has knowledge that you do not.  And if they’re dead you’ll never get it.”

Tom frowns, sitting back in his seat.  “That hardly sounds like remorseful dogma.”  He’s practically pouting. 

“Baby steps,” Harry replies.  “For now, your curiosity—your want for knowledge—should be enough to abate anything else.”

“You’re so certain?”

Harry nods.  “You don’t feel guilt.  Not yet.  Maybe not ever.  But you’ve always been _ravenous_ for knowledge, Tom.”

And Tom appears suddenly quite ravenous.

His eyes, dark and assessing, do not leave Harry; though they certainly roam.  Harry very nearly squirms.  This is the Dark Lord looking at Harry like he’s something to be eaten.  Harry reminds himself that it is just Tom’s hunger—his constant hunger—for information and power.  It has little to do with _Harry_ and everything to do with what Harry _knows_.

“How do you know this?” he asks in a tone that is almost seductive.

“Because I know _you_.”

Tom’s brow lifts.

Rolling his eyes, Harry sighs.  “I’ve known you my entire _life_ , Tom.  You’ve tortured me, possessed me, _killed_ me.  I’ve had you in my _head_ —“

He stops.

Tom is waiting again.  Patient.  Interested.

“I wasn’t lying.  When I said we’re a lot alike.”  Harry confesses, dragging his chair back to his side of the table, biding for time.

“How are we alike?” Tom asks and Harry twitches.  “How are we alike, Harry?”

“Both orphans.  Both raised by muggles.  Both treated cruelly by them.”  Harry’s smile is small and sad as he sinks back into his chair.  “Both freaks.”

Tom’s breath catches, but he quickly composes himself.  “Your parents--?”

Harry gives him a look.

“Ah,” he nods.  “And the muggles?”

“Family.  Though they wished desperately that I wasn’t.”

“Yet, and I am just assuming, you do not begrudge them for the mistreatment?” Tom’s legs are crossed again; a defensive posturing, Harry is coming to realize.  “You do not _hate_ them?  All of them?”

“Like you do?”

Tom’s jaw ticks.

“No,” Harry smiles again.  “Because I’m wise enough to know that _one_ muggle does not equate to _all_ muggles.  Just as one wizard does not equate to all wizards.”

“But they’re _weak_ —“

“Tom,” Harry chides.  “They’re human, just as we are.  Their hearts beat, just as ours do.  They eat, they breathe, they bleed.  They have knowledge that we do not.  Just as we have knowledge _they_ do not.”

Tom is dubious.  “And that makes their cruelty okay?”

“No.  It doesn’t.  Just as it does not condone cruelty in return.”  Harry’s eyes drift to the blue skies outside; Tom watches him.  “We are made up of _choices_ , Tom.  Ones that are easy and ones that are right.  One of these days, you might actually see the difference between them.”

They eat the rest of their meal in silence.

* * *

 

“You said I killed you.”

Harry blinks up from a passage on linear time theory, brows furrowed.  His legs are sprawled out in front of him under the coffee table, his back pressed to the settee, his feet warming by the fire.

In his chair, Tom peers down at him.  He’s looking at Harry like he’s a puzzle again, and Harry makes a disgruntled sound.  Tom has been insatiably curious since morning.  Most of his questions have been about Harry rather than about complex emotions like Harry wishes they would be.  While more complicated to explain the intricacies of things like guilt, sorrow, or even love, Harry would prefer them to the intermittent trips down memory lane.

However, he supposes, it might be a good way for Tom to learn empathy.  It could be a bridge to the things Harry thinks Tom needs to change enough for any sort of difference.

“You’ve _tried_ to kill me loads of times,” Harry murmurs, glancing at the clock on the far wall.  “We should have lunch.”

“How many times?”

Harry sighs.  “Counting two nights ago?  At least six.  Maybe seven.”

“But I succeeded?”

“Once.”

Tom tilts his head.  “How did you survive so frequently--?”

“Luck, mostly.  And complicated love magic.”  Harry shrugs.  “Even I don’t quite understand it half the time.”

“Love magic?” Tom sneers.

“Yep.  Love is the most powerful magic of them all, didn’t you know?”

“That’s disgusting.”

“You asked.”

Tom grunts, focus falling back to the book in his lap.  “I regret it already.”

Letting out a soft sound of his own, Harry clamors to his feet.  Tom pays him no mind until Harry plucks his book up from his hands. 

“What--?”

“ _Lunch_ , Tom.  Food is important.”

“I’m perfectly content to work while you eat,” Tom scowls.

“Well, I’m not content to _eat_ while you _work_ ,” Harry snaps the book shut, setting it on the table.  “A break will not kill you.”

“It might kill _you_ ,” Tom threatens mildly, but it is—of all things— _playful_. 

Harry blinks, owlish, and then grins.  “I doubt you want to wreck your parlor again.”

“Ah, yes.  The first man in wizarding history to survive the Killing Curse.”  Tom pushes to his feet gracefully. 

Harry snorts indelicately.  “It’s hardly the first time.”

“You’ve survived it before.”

That delightfully perplexed expression takes over Tom’s features.  He steps closer, hands folding behind his back.  In front of him, Harry stands his ground and shrugs.  He shoves his hands into his pockets, touching his wand, to keep from fidgeting.

Tom look down at him, dark eyes burning.  Harry avoids direct eye-contact, gaze casting off Tom’s shoulder.  They hover there until Tom cants his head to catch Harry’s sight.

“You’ve survived it before,” he prompts.

“Yes.  Kind of.  Yes.”  Harry clears his throat.  “Like I said: complicated love magic.”

Tom shakes his head.  “That’s not all there is.  You’re a dreadful liar, Harry Potter.”

Something in Harry’s stomach twists.  He shudders.  “Am I?” he feigns ignorance.

Humming, Tom eases closer, and when Harry moves to step back, his calf jars against the coffee table.  “Tell me about the first time you survived it.”

“You mean the time you killed my parents?”  Harry asks, voice thin, desperate.  “The time you broke into my home, slaughtered my father, and murdered my mother in order to get to me?”

Tom actually flinches.  “Why would I--?”

“Attack a child barely one year old?”  Harry’s voice goes quiet, near a whisper, strained in its duress of the memory.  “A prophecy.  A stupid prophecy that you heard threatened your _immortality_.”

“You survived the Killing Curse as a babe?”

“My mother gave her life to protect mine,” Harry tells him, throat feeling thick.  “She sacrificed herself because she loved me more than she was afraid of you.  And it was _her love_ that saved me.  Every time.”

“You’re shaking.”  Tom breathes.

He is.  He’s trembling.  Dragging a hand through his hair, Harry looks away, and his face colors.  He feels hot; angry in a way that only Voldemort has ever been able to make him, filled with a keen sorrow that thinking about his mother with her bright eyes and red hair always evokes.

Tom reaches for him.  His hands are tentative, but they grip Harry by the arms firm, thumbs kneading at muscle.  Harry shivers, looks up sharply, and stares aghast at the grim line of Tom’s mouth.

“What are you doing?” Harry rasps.

“I’ve never actually offered comfort to anyone,” Tom admits, almost laughing.  “I find myself struggling to figure out how.”

“Why are you--?”  Harry shakes his head.  “ _What_?”

“I’ve upset you.”

“You frequently upset me,” Harry tones dully.  “Might I remind you that you tried to _kill me_ two days ago.”

“Yes, but I’m trying to fix it.”

Harry is instantly suspicious.  “Why?”

“I want to.  Why else?”

“Blatant emotional manipulation.”

Tom smiles—a brilliant, broad, bright thing.  His hands move from Harry’s arms, to Harry’s face, framing it. 

“Are you _certain_ you weren’t sorted into Slytherin?” he asks.

“Nearly,” Harry mumbles, brows furrowed, a bit numb with shock.

“A story for another time, I’m sure.”  Tom replies.  “Lunch?”

Harry nods, but his confusion does not abate.  “So you _are_ manipulating me.”

Sighing, Tom’s hands drop, only to take Harry’s wrist in order to begin pulling Harry from the parlor.  “Yes and no.  I want something you have: knowledge.  That’s true.  Which means I _don’t_ want to give you cause not to provide it to me—death or otherwise.”

“Lesson one,” Harry follows, stumbling a bit.

“Exactly.”  Tom nods.  “That, and I genuinely have no desire to cause you discomfiture.”

“You’re learning,” Harry huffs.  “Now the next step is getting you to actually _care_.”

Tom casts him a dubious look.

* * *

 

“We should set ground rules,” Tom announces as he watches Harry rummage around the kitchen later that evening.

Their day progressed about the same way the previous day had.  Too much reading and not enough information.

It had been Tom that suggested they call it an evening and grab dinner, much to Harry’s surprise.  It had followed a jarring, terrifying announcement that perhaps what they were looking for hadn’t even been discovered yet.  Harry had gotten so morose he’d read and reread the same page three times before Tom caught on that what he’d said had been upsetting to his house guest.  He’d quickly called the research to a close after that.

“Ground rules?” Harry asks, head buried in a cupboard.

Dawley grumbles next to him, a constant presence as Harry rummages about.  The poor house elf has been in a tizzy since Harry announced his intentions to make dessert twenty minutes previous, just after they’d finished dinner.  Harry could only appease the creature by letting him help.  Which is why the work table is overflowing with fresh peaches Dawley retrieved from god knows where.

“Yes,” Tom crosses his arms, leaning in the doorway.  “I need to avoid the more… _touchy_ subjects of our shared past.”  Tom pauses and frowns.  “Future?”

“Oh, like the cold blooded murder of my parents?” Harry chirps, glib and crass, peeking over the work table at him.

Tom shoots him a dirty look, perhaps because of the apparent double standard.  “Yes.  Among whatever others there may be.  Even the talk of _potions_ we had at dinner seemed to put you into a state of melancholy.” 

“Let’s see,” Harry huffs as he pushes up, leaning against the bench.  “I’m not particularly fond of the anti-muggle rhetoric you’re so fond of spitting.”

“Will it emotionally devastate you?”

“Hardly,” Harry bites the inside of his cheek to keep from grinning.  “But I won’t hesitate to tell you how wrong you are.”

“Just tell me what to avoid, Harry.”  Tom rolls his eyes.

“I’ll tell you when to stop,” Harry replies, fumbling with his cuffs as he tries to undue the buttons.  “How does that sound?”

“Fair,” Tom mutters, eyeing him a moment, and then holding out a hand.  “Come here.”

Harry freezes.  “Why?”

With an air of agitated impatience, Tom shoves off the jamb and paces over.  He rounds the work table, stopping just in front of Harry, who does nothing more than stare up at him.  Without a word, Tom takes Harry by the forearms and pulls them toward himself.  Harry shuffles forward, brows furrowing.

Tom holds up a single, long finger and Harry nearly goes cross eyed to look at it.  He unfastens the buttons of Harry’s right sleeve, fingertips cold against his wrist.  Harry shivers, gaze locked on the quick delicate motions of Tom’s hands as he folds up his sleeves for him.  At his left elbow, Tom’s fingers linger.

“There,” he breathes.  “Much better.”

“Thanks,” Harry mutters.

His eyes are still on where Tom is touching him.  As Tom’s hands draw down his forearm, Harry shudders.  Tom’s thumb traces the blue veins in his wrist, and Tom hums.  It’s a pleased sound, a pleasant sound, but Harry doesn’t know why Tom makes it.  He just knows that touching Tom, just like touching Voldemort, leaves his heart racing and his stomach twisting.  Though, he’s happy to note a significant lack of disgust when Tom’s fingers trail over the lines of Harry’s palm. 

“Are you finished?” Harry asks and hates how strained he sounds.

“It’s odd,” Tom says instead.  “I noticed it when I first saw you in Diagon Alley, but I still can’t explain it.”

“Explain what?”

“This… draw I feel toward you.  I felt it the moment you appeared in the street.”  Tom admits without an ounce of shame or preamble.  “It’s near incessant.  I don’t have to pretend like I do with others.  And when I touch you… well, I find that I almost don’t want to stop.”

Even Tom appears off guard.  Discomfitted.  Awed.

“It’s like some part of my soul recognizes yours.”

Harry looks up sharply, yanking his hand away.  “We are _quickly_ getting into upsetting territory.”

Tom’s eyes narrow dangerously, and as Harry steps back, Tom steps forward.  “Do I smell a secret?”

“We were literally _just_ discussing ground rules,” Harry is ashamed of how high his voice sounds to his own ears.

“You haven’t said stop,” Tom shrugs.

“Well,” Harry falters, hip jostling the table and sending a peach to the floor as Tom stalks after him, every bit the predator he appears.  “ _Stop_.”

Tom’s jaw goes tight, but he stops chasing Harry round the worktop.  “Why does it frighten you so?  My soul recognizing yours?”

“ _Tom_ ,” Harry hisses, pointedly not looking him in the eye.  “Stop it.”

He hears Tom take a number of slow breaths.  When he’s calmed enough, the excitement of whatever chase he’d had dwindling, he smooths down his shirt.

“Fine.  I’ll drop it.  For now.”  Tom tells him.  “Now, what are you doing with all of this fruit?”

Harry is hesitant to look up at him, but when he does, Tom is waiting patiently.  Plucking up a paring knife, Harry pulls one of the peaches close.

“Why?  Would you like to help?”

Tom’s nose wrinkles.  “Is it messy?”

“Yes, of course.”  Harry replies primly, already cutting off the top of one.  “But most good things are.”

Tom regards him for a hushed moment.  Then he steps closer and holds out a hand, demanding the other paring knife.

Somewhere around their feet, Dawley lets out a distressed sound.


	4. as constant as a northern star (constantly in the darkness? where is that at?)

What can I say?   
 When a creature learns about forgiveness,   
 wouldn’t you know,   
 it actually starts to look for it.

—           Dalton Day

* * *

 

An owl arrives the next morning during breakfast.  It is a vast bird, speckled in black and brown, tufts of feathers sticking up from its head like horns or like ears.  From the snow laden tree outside, it hoots and coos for attention, its wide yellow eyes peering at them through the wall of windows.

Harry notices it first.  He sets his fork down and pushes to his feet, ignoring Tom’s curious look as he makes his way over to the kitchen and steps out the glass door that leads into the cold outside.  It is overcast today, leaving the world in an odd haze of blue, but the air is still and Harry is grateful for it.  He’s wearing his jeans again, and one of the nice shirts Tom left out for him after that second night.  Tom had eyed him when he’d first padded downstairs in his freshly cleaned clothes and sneakers, like he was disappointed, but he’d kept his mouth shut.

The snow crunches beneath his shoes as he makes his way to the tree the owl is perched in.  It is only a matter of seconds before the steady sound of compression, of friction, echoes behind him as Tom follows Harry out into the yard.  Harry slows as he comes up to the trembling pine and offers the owl a smile and a hand.  It blinks at him for a moment before carefully stepping off of the branch and onto Harry’s outstretched arm.

Smiling, Harry strokes through the owl’s feathers with a gentle finger.  It butts its head up into the touch.  Behind him, Tom lets out a soft sound from the back of his throat.

“You’re going to ruin that,” Tom says in pointed concern of the dark blue button up the owl’s talons are digging into.

“We’re wizards,” Harry replies and turns to him.  “I’ll fix it later.  There’s a letter here for you.”

“Yes, thank you.”  Tom plucks it away, thumbing it open.

“Who’s it from?”

“Malfoy,” he mutters as quickly as he skims the intricate invitation.

Harry’s expression twists up; nose wrinkling in much the same way Tom’s does from time to time.  He strokes down the owl’s back, lips pressed thin, his displeasure evident on his face.  It takes a moment before Tom notes it.  Then his brow lifts loftily. 

“Harry,” Tom regards him, tone droll and slow, amusement bubbling up.  “Are you familiar with the Malfoys?”

“Unfortunately,” Harry admits with some level of recalcitrance. 

There is mirth in Tom’s eyes as he shuffles forward a step to offer a treat to the owl.  “Do tell.”

“I go to school with a Malfoy,” Harry admits and shivers at the contrast of cold at his back and the heat of Tom at his front.  “He isn’t exactly my favorite person.  His father is far worse, of course.  His mother isn’t half bad.”

“Familiar with his entire family,” Tom surmises, a long finger dragging between the owl’s eyes even as Tom’s gaze never leaves Harry’s face.  “It sounds as if he’s an ex-lover.”

Harry’s face goes red.  The flush burns out to the tips of his ears, and he gapes up at Tom.  Mouth working, a strangled sound escapes him.  Tom waits, delight evident in the quirk of his lips as Harry stammers, but there is something undoubtedly dark in Tom’s eyes.

“Draco Malfoy is _not_ my lover,” he manages.  “Nor has he _ever_ been.”

Tom hums.  “Are you certain? You seem quite flustered by the idea.”

“I am _this_ close—“ Harry holds up his free hand, thumb perhaps an inch from his forefinger “—to hurling a snowball right at your face again.”

“Snowball?” Tom frowns, stepping back as Harry lets the owl launch off of his arm and back into the tree to wait.  “Is that what you threw at me the other day?”

Harry stares at him in the wake of the bird’s departure.  “You’re joking.”

“What am I joking about?”

“You’ve _never_ had a snowball fight?” Harry asks, aghast.

“It sounds positively juvenile,” Tom sneers, but he cannot deny the curious interest that Harry catches gleaming in his gaze.

“Alright.  That’s that, then.”  Harry takes Tom by the wrist, already dragging him back toward the side door.  “Come on.”

“What are you doing?” Tom asks, but follows along.

“ _We_ are going inside to finish eating.  _You_ are going to reply to whatever it is Malfoy wants of you.  And then _we_ are going to bundle up and head out to that backyard of yours that is _absurdly_ large, and I’m going to teach you your second lesson.” Harry’s tone is firm, his fingers unyielding at Tom’s wrist, though Tom does not seem to mind all that much.

“My second lesson?” he asks, bemused.

“On your road to redemption,” Harry nods.  “The first step to recognizing what is _wrong_ —“

* * *

 

“—is to appreciate what’s _right_ ,” Harry repeats with a smile that is half hidden by the thick scarf Tom lent him.  “And to do _that_ , you need to learn how to have _fun_.”

Tom is too pristine across the yard from him.  He’s in a long, dark coat and his gloves and boots are made of dragon hide.  He looks nonplussed, near disinterested; the glint in Tom’s eyes, the challenge, tells Harry a completely different story.

“ _Fun_ is your second lesson?” he asks.

“ _Absolutely_ ,” Harry grins, lopsided and roguish, rocking up onto his toes.  “What do you do for fun, Tom?”

He lifts a dry brow.

Harry holds out his hands, shaking his head.  “No, never mind.  Don’t tell me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Positive,” Harry nods and buries deeper into his robes.  “The point is, whatever it is you _think_ you know about fun, you don’t.”

Tom _tsks_ softly.  “It’s not very polite, Harry, to insult my intelligence.”

“It’s not your _intelligence_ I’m insulting,” Harry quips.  “Now, listen quietly and stop interrupting.”

Eyes narrowed, Tom huffs out a sharp breath and his lips go thin.  Harry, taking his silence as permission, grins and sets to work. 

“Rules are,” Harry crouches and scoops up a handful of snow, compacting it into a ball between his palms.  “No wands.  No magic.  Just your speed and your wits.”

“Is that all?”  Tom drolls.

“ _Have fun_ ,” Harry insists again, standing, ball in hand.  “And may the best man win.”

Tom is ill prepared for the first snowball and the second.  He is _not_ ill prepared for any of the rest.

Instead, he is very, _very_ ready.  He throws his own ball at Harry, his coat already covered in white, but his aim is true as it pegs Harry in the side.  Harry trips, laughing, and tosses another Tom’s way.  It strikes him in the chest, and Tom grunts on impact.

He’s gathering up ammunition— _snow_ —for another attack, but Harry darts close and smooshes a handful of it over Tom’s head before slipping past and into the sparse tree line surrounding the property for cover.  Tom practically growls after him, pelting Harry once in the back before the younger man manages to duck behind the thick trunk of a tree.  Laughter follows, loud and unrepentant, when another of Tom’s attacks does nothing but splatter against the bark.  It is infectious, and Tom cannot help but grin at the sound.

The chase that follows is a long one.  Despite Harry’s short stature, he is fast on his feet.  They both manage more than a few direct hits, but mostly it is taunts and laughter infused jeering that fills the space between tossing and running.  They are well into the woods by the time Harry grows tired enough for Tom to catch him.

Harry yelps when he gets a face full of snow.  It knocks him off of his feet, toppling him into a pile of snow at the base of a pine.  When he finally clears his vision and glasses of ice, Tom is above him, looking far too triumphant.  Harry, unwilling to go quietly, lurches forward and up to catch Tom by the middle and knock him back into his own bank.

They grunt as they land, and Tom shoves another handful of snow into Harry’s face.  Sputtering, Harry pulls back, breathless and on the verge of laugher as he scrambles to get the cold away from his skin.  Side by side in the pile, Tom and Harry flop back in wordless truce to catch their breath. 

“You’re right,” Tom grins, looking positively pleased to have bested Harry.  “Beating you _is_ fun.”

“You’re terrible,” Harry mumbles, trying in vain to dry his glasses with a wet scarf.

Tom laughs; it’s a deep, rich sound.  “How so?”

“The list is limitless,” Harry confides, pouting down at his glasses.  “But _currently_ for going for the face of a bloke who can’t see well.  It’s cheating, I tell you.”

“Well,” Tom plucks his glasses away and mutters a soft charm before handing them back.  “I am a future Dark Lord.”

Harry blinks over at him.  “That’s not nearly as funny as you think it is.”

“No,” Tom breathes, on his elbows, peering over at Harry with a muted mixture of fading joy and solemn contemplation.  “I suppose it isn’t.”

Harry huffs out a breath, struggling to push to his feet, clothes wet and cold from the snow as a slow wind begins to whip through the trees; afternoon coming to settle in.  Standing, he offers a hand to Tom, and a small smile.

“We aren’t out here to talk about that, though.”  Harry states.  “We’re out here to have fun.”

Tom regards him for a long moment.  “Yes.  Fun.”

He reaches for the hand Harry offers and takes him by the wrist instead.  Pulling sharply, he brings Harry back down into the snow with him, laughing at the startled sound Harry makes.

“You _bastard_!” Harry crows as Tom scrubs another handful of snow against his cheek, pinning Harry into the bank with the weight of his body.

“Say I’ve won and I’ll stop,” Tom grins, curling fringe hanging wet in his face.

“Never!” Harry squeaks at another face full.

“Say I’ve won, Harry.”  Tom insists.

“You win, you win!”  Harry pushes at Tom’s chest.  “Stop!”

Chuckling, Tom stills above him, pulling his wand out to cast a quick warming charm on the both of them.  Harry shudders, glasses fogging up, hair wet and matted against his head.  He peers up at Tom through the haze and holds his short breath when Tom’s fingers push Harry’s hair back from his face.  Even through the smog, Harry can see the curious tilt of Tom’s head.

A gloved finger traces the scar above his right eye.  Harry twitches, heart racing.

“Where did you get this?” Tom asks.

Swallowing with an audible little _click_ , Harry tries to shift, but is caught between the cold of the snow and the heat of Tom’s body.  “You,” he says.

Tom falters, lips pursing.  “… I’ve caused you so much pain.”

“Not yet,” Harry shakes his head.  “You don’t have to—you have a _choice_ , Tom.  You can still choose.”

The line of Tom’s jaw goes tight.  “I find that I… do not want to cause you pain.”

“That’s good.”  Harry tells him, earnest and dreadfully hopeful.  “That’s a good thing, Tom.”

Tom hums, but makes no further comment on those feelings.  “How did you not kill me that moment you saw me?  Knowing what I am to become?”

“Shock played a rather large role,” Harry admits softly, and it fogs between them, their breath clouding the space their bodies do not occupy.  “But then you weren’t—you’re not a monster yet.  You’ve fucked up a few times.  But there’s still hope.”

“Hope,” Tom says, like he’s tasting the word, and then he sighs.  “I do not understand you.”

Harry waits.  Sees the cogs turning in Tom’s thoughtful expression. 

“What would you have done?” Harry asks.

“I _would_ and _have_ killed for far lesser things,” Tom says with such a fierceness that it borders on frightening.  “I would have killed you on the spot, had our positions been reversed.”

Harry cocks his head, frowning.  “Would you kill me now?  If you could?”

“No,” Tom declares, without any hesitation, and something in Harry twists.  “No, of course not.  You’re—I _know_ you.”

“And that changes things?”

“Yes,” Tom insists.  “I do not kill people I _know_.  Not unless they do me harm or threaten my goals.  I have _reason_.  I don’t recklessly murder people.”

Harry frowns.  “But what about Myrtle?”

“Myrtle Warren was an _accident_ ,” Tom scowls and pushes to his feet.  “She wasn’t—There wasn’t supposed to be anyone in the bathroom _with_ me.”

For a long second, Harry can do nothing but stare.  Then he shoves up and steps into Tom’s space, catching him by the lapels of his coat.

“Moaning Myrtle was an accident?” Harry asks in a hiss, breathless and flush with the revelation.

“ _Moaning_ \--?”

“She’s a ghost in my time,” Harry’s fingers tighten in Tom’s jacket.  “ _Was_ Myrtle an accident?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Tom near shouts, leaning from Harry’s unwavering gaze.  “But an accident I used to my _advantage_.”

“Your first horcrux, yes, I _know_.”  But Harry is grinning, and grinning wide.  “But you won’t kill just anyone?  What about your followers?  Your Death Eaters?”

“My--?  Is _that_ what I call them in your time?”

“Answer the questions, Tom.”

“If they were a threat, _yes_.  What is this all about?”  Tom asks, furiously in the dark as to why Harry appears so thrilled—or perhaps relieved.

“You’re so different,” Harry whispers and then laughs, something like joy inside of him.  “You’re _so_ different.”

“Harry,” Tom catches his wrists and squeezes.  “ _What_ are you on about?”

Harry laughs again.  “You wouldn’t have hesitated, you’re right, Tom.  To kill me—to kill _anyone_.  But I think you’d hesitate now.”

“You don’t know that.”

“No,” Harry smiles.  “No, but I know you, Tom Riddle.  Better, sometimes, than I know myself.  And I know you’re different—you aren’t him, not yet, and you _never_ have to be.”

Tom grunts and looks as if he’s biting back the urge to roll his eyes or strike, but there is a rabid curiosity about him.  “Your logic is _severely_ flawed, Harry Potter.  Let’s get you out of the cold before you start muttering more gibberish.”

Harry lets the conversation end there.  He lets Tom pull him to the house through the woods by the hand.  He smiles the whole way.

Because Tom does not _once_ deny Harry’s claims.

* * *

 

“Here,” Tom drapes a blanket over Harry’s shoulders as they warm up by the fire in the parlor, the sun sinking down behind heavy clouds that had kept their world grey, quickly turning morning to afternoon.

Harry blinks a few times and then smiles over at him as Tom tentatively, perhaps even regretfully, settles on the carpet at his side.  “Is Dawley making tea?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” Harry says earnestly. 

Tom shifts, grumbling.  “I really do wish you’d stop looking at me like that.”

“Like what?”

“Like I’m something to be _saved_.”

Harry hums, wrapping up further in the blanket.  He’s still cold from their jaunt outside, despite the heat of the fire, warming their faces and fingers. 

“Perhaps you are.”

Tom’s nose wrinkles in distaste.  “I am _not_.  I do not _need it_ nor do I _want_ it.”

“Is that to say then, that even after all you’ve learned so far, you will _still_ create more horcruxes?” Harry asks, tone sharp.  “Knowing what it will turn you into?  You _have_ your immortality, Tom.  Why deal more death?  Or would you prefer the madness that will come with breaking your soul too small?  The _decay_ that will come?”

As always, the silence that follows is a heavy one.  Tom does not look at him.  His gaze stays on the fire; on the way it moves and burns and laps at the wood feeding it.  Harry watches the light play over his face.

Tom’s jaw clenches.  Harry can see the muscles work and twitch beneath his skin.  His fingers itch.  He wants to reach out, to touch Tom, to comfort him.  The very idea frightens Harry to the core.

Outside, the wind howls.  A storm is rolling in. Daylight, what is left of it, is fading quickly into twilight.  In the parlor, the blues and reds clash on Tom’s skin; on Harry’s. 

“What do I look like?” Tom asks, draping his arms over his knees and playing with something—the silver orb that brought Harry there—to keep from looking at Harry.  “In your future, what do I look like?  What am I--?  What am I like?”

Harry wants to laugh at the vanity of it.  Instead, he shakes his head.

“I can’t tell you,” he mumbles, and Tom’s brow furrows in disappointment and confusion.  “But I can show you.”

Tom looks his way sharply.  “How?”

Chuckling, Harry shifts to face him fully.  “You’re one of the world’s best Legilimens.  How do you think?”

Tom’s lips part, shock evident, but he’s already twisting to face Harry completely.  “You do realize what it is you’re doing, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Harry nods and the fire _cracks_.  “But you have to promise that is _all_ you will look for.  Nothing else.”

“And you’ll take me at my word?” Tom asks, dubious.

Harry smiles.  “Yes.”

Tom shudders.  He wets his lips but does not speak.  _Cannot_ speak.  Harry searches his face a moment before his smile goes soft and sad. 

“It’s terrifying, isn’t it?” he asks.

Tom wavers and then shakes his head.  “How do normal people _stand_ it?”

“What?” Harry laughs, like a chime in the quiet room.  “The trust?  Or the responsibility?”

“Both,” Tom croaks, and Harry has never seen him so shaken. 

Shrugging, Harry’s smile goes lopsided.  “Sometimes you just have to jump head first, or nothing will ever get done.”

Rolling his eyes, Tom inches closer.  “ _Gryffindor_ ,” he mumbles.

“Yes,” Harry beams.

A tea platter appears on the coffee table beside them.  It startles Harry slightly, but no more so than Tom’s hands on his face.  He jumps, blinking at Tom through his glasses, and offers a tight lipped grin of encouragement.

Tom’s thumb drags along one of his cheeks.  Harry shivers; in his lap, his fingers curl into loose fists.  He tries to summon up as many memories as he can, to gather them at the front so that Tom doesn’t have to dig much.  Tom leans close, expression grim, eyes burning.

“I promise,” he breathes.  “Just what I become.  Nothing more.”

Harry nods slow.  “Okay.”

Tom keeps searching Harry’s face for some kind of deception where there is none.  Reaching up, Harry takes Tom’s wrists in hand.

“Go on, Tom.” He teases.  “You’ve been wanting to read my mind since the first moment you saw me.”

Without another word, Tom’s mind presses at Harry’s.  It is so easy, the way their thoughts slip together.  Harry gasps at the rush of it, of _Tom_ , and his entire body _quivers_.  That presence, that power, pours out into his head.  The whole world seems to tip over.

It feels right, somehow.  Like Tom always belonged there, pressing at his mind.  Perhaps it is just the familiarity.  Perhaps Harry’s body just remembers the piece of Tom that was locked inside of him for most of his life.

Tom only takes what he needs.  Only touches Harry’s memories for glimpses of the cruel, cold monster he becomes.  He finds horror there; fear and pain and terror.  Red eyes and a forbidding sneer.  Skin like a snake, words equally as serpentine.  He finds the rage.  He finds the madness.

Then he finds himself.  Dead at Harry’s feet. 

He recoils after what is only an instant but seemed an eternity.  He is shaking and Harry is trembling.  Tom covers his mouth, as though he might be ill, and sits across from Harry trying to steady his wavering breath.  Harry has to swallow a few times, to shove down the vitriol that billows up in him, the echo of a tragedy. 

It is not easy, to live with so much death in the heart. 

“Decay,” Tom finally mutters.  “It will… It will destroy me.”

“Yes,” Harry nods. 

Tom’s gaze strays to the silver orb resting on the carpet by the fire.  He picks it up gingerly, almost reverent, and reads the engraving by the fire light.

Harry waits.

“ _To take you where you are most needed_ ,” Tom says.

Harry frowns.

“You asked me.  When I asked why you were here, you asked me what I was doing in Diagon Alley on Christmas.”  Tom’s voice is rough as he offers the orb over, and Harry takes it, their fingers brushing.  “I was on my way to Hepzibah Smith’s house to surprise her.  I had planned to create my fourth horcrux that day.”

Harry’s jaw goes loose.  He stares, the orbs ticking steadily in his palm.

Tom’s smile is tight but true.  “I do believe you saved me from making a rather large mistake, Harry.”

He reaches for him.  Tom’s long fingers brush Harry’s cheek again, then press onwards to tangle in the mess of Harry’s hair, the other tipping Harry’s face up by the chin.  On his knees, Tom leans in, and presses a kiss to the corner of Harry’s mouth. 

“Thank you,” Tom breathes.

Harry can do nothing but stare, clutching the ball and his blanket close.

“Forgive me,” Tom says.

Hovering there for another second, Tom grimaces.  His fingers are gentle in Harry’s hair, stroking as Harry tries to grasp—desperately—for what has happened.  For what is happening.  The touch is constant, delicate, sweet, and unlike anything Harry ever could have expected from Tom.

Then it is gone and Tom is gone and Harry is left with nothing but a pounding heart and burning lips.


	5. part of you pours out of me

His mouth is killing everything I’m trying to think.

—           Rainbow Rowell | _Carry On_

* * *

 

Harry wakes before anyone can wake him.  His night had been a restless one anyways.  Aside from the nightmares that reliving so many memories left him with, Harry hadn’t been able to stop thinking about what Tom said or what Tom did.

After Tom had kissed him, Tom had disappeared into the further reaches of the small manor for the rest of the afternoon and evening.  Harry hadn’t bothered to go looking for him.  He had needed time to think about things; he wasn’t sure if Tom had disappeared because he knew Harry would need him to, or if he had needed the time himself.  Harry imagines it was a bit of both.  It isn’t easy to realize that the culmination of one’s life goals ended in madness and death.

When Harry makes his way downstairs sometime just after dawn, Tom is awake and in the same clothes as the day previous, sitting in the parlor, a hand over his mouth as he stares into the dying embers of a fire.  In the corner, there is a record circling on a turntable, some big band serenade playing loud enough to quiet one’s thoughts.  Harry couldn’t name it if he tried.  Over the soft static of the needle dragging, Harry can make out a number of brassy instruments, the tune slow but catchy.

Tom hasn’t noticed him.  Harry takes the opportunity to look over this man who is hardly more than a boy.  This man with a destiny drenched in blood, just as red as Harry’s own.  He’s beautiful; of course he is.  Even in a state of evident exhaustion, he’s beautiful.  Hair a mess of dark curls, fringe hanging in grey eyes, full lips pursed in thought behind long fingers.  He’s pale—not the inhuman pallor of Voldemort, but certainly fair—and fit in an unassuming way.  Tom’s no Charlie Weasley, nor is he lithe the way Draco always has been, but he’s got their height.  The height Harry cannot claim.

His brow is pinched in thought.  About what, Harry wouldn’t presume to know, but he can guess that there are crimson eyes haunting him.  He is acutely aware of how daunting it is to have Voldemort’s legacy hanging overhead.  It is unpleasant—the sensation of dread—and Harry wishes quite suddenly, quite vehemently to sooth Tom’s worries.  He knows, however, that this world will be better for it. 

The music fades.  As the needle drags, Tom shifts.  Harry watches as he removes the Gaunt ring from his right hand before holding it up to study it in the dim light of the early morning, none of the lamps lit, and the fire dying.

“You can’t repair it,” Harry says, voice still hoarse from sleep. 

Tom looks his way sharply, shoulders drawing tight.

“I’d tell you.  If there was a way, I’d tell you.”  Harry adds, tucking his hands into the pockets of the well-fitted trousers Tom had provided for him.

A fine brow lifts.  “What makes you think I want to?”

“I’m half blind, not stupid.”  Harry tells him, peering over the top edge of his spectacles as if to prove a point.  “I’m not sure how many times I have to tell you that _I know you_ , Tom.”

Tom’s jaw ticks.  “And if I destroyed it?”

“It would destroy the soul fragment with it, Tom.”

“Stop it,” Tom spits, shoving to his feet.

“Stop what?”

“Standing there, talking to me like I’m your _friend_ when I am nothing more than your _murderer_.”  Tom gestures to him with a hand.  “Stop saying my name like that.”

Harry snorts, leaning against the jamb separating the parlor from the foyer and the hall.  “You’re hardly _my_ murderer, Tom.  Even Voldemort can’t properly off me.”

“I _am_ Voldemort.”

Shaking his head, Harry smiles.  “ _You_ , Tom Riddle, are _not_ Lord Voldemort.  Not now.  And I sincerely doubt you ever will be.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“Are you planning on making anymore horcruxes?”

Tom glances away.  His jaw flexes again as he holds up the ring; the Resurrection Stone.  It gleams in the soft light filtering in from the foyer.  He studies it for a long moment before dropping his hand, his other coming up to rub over his forehead, head dipped.

Pity is sharp in Harry’s chest.  He pushes off the archway and pads close.  There is a part of him that wants to reach out, that wants to offer Tom comfort, and there is another part that needs Tom to suffer this way, if only to insure the safety of a wizarding world apart from his own. 

“Have you slept at all?” Harry asks softly.

Tom shakes his head.

“You should,” Harry hesitates before reaching out, reaching up, and placing a hand on Tom’s arm.  “At least for a couple of hours.  It’ll help.”

Tom stares at Harry’s hand a moment, then shakes his head again, voice strained.  “How are you so…?”

“Stubborn?”

“ _Kind_ ,” Tom’s eyes meet his, clouded and dark.  “I always thought it a weakness, but _you_ … You survive the Killing Curse.  _You_ defeat, not only me, but _death_.”

Flustered, Harry pulls his hand back.  “It’s _really_ not—“

Tom catches his wrist, bringing Harry’s hand back up.  He bypasses his arm, guiding Harry’s hand higher, pressing his cheek to Harry’s open palm.  Tom’s eyes flutter shut, lashes thick and dark against his cheeks.  Harry’s lips part, face burning.

He wants to kiss him, he realizes.  For a second, he is _blinded_ with shame.  The pretty image of Tom Riddle seeking solace at Harry’s fingertips is blurred by a hefty weight that Harry valiantly tries to dispel.  This is _not_ Voldemort, he reminds himself.  Harry will never _let_ him become Voldemort.

Shuffling forward a step, Harry drags his thumb over the high, delicate line of Tom’s cheek.  He feels Tom shudder, and it echoes into him. 

“I thought you daft, at first.”  Tom admits on a whisper, eyes shut, as if afraid to break whatever spell the dawn has cast upon them.  “But you’re not, are you?”

“I don’t know.”  Harry shrugs, breath catching when Tom’s eyes open to meet his. 

“I do.”  Tom nods, fingers loosening around Harry’s wrist and easing up until their fingers are a tangled mess at his cheek.  “You’re strong.  You’re powerful.”

Harry wets his lips; Tom’s gaze drops to his mouth.  His eyes are dark.  Hungry.

“So much more powerful than I will ever be.”

For a second, Harry stops breathing.  Then he shakes his head.  “You don’t—I’m _not_ —You don’t know that.”

“ _I do_.” He is so vehement that Harry wavers.

“I’m just Harry,” he denies.  “I’ve _always_ been just Harry.  I just had a lot of luck, and a lot of love.”

“ _Love_ ,” Tom breathes, brows drawing together.

Harry’s mouth feels suddenly dry.  “You should sleep.”

His hand slips free of Tom’s, away from his face.  Tom lets him, Harry knows better than to doubt that.  His fingers are still tingling.  Tom’s eyes won’t leave his face despite Harry’s carefully lowered gaze.

Tom steps forward.  Harry steps back.  While that gives Tom pause, it does not stop him.  He steps forward again, invading Harry’s space smoothly.  Harry steps back again, mouth setting into a grimace.

This song and dance continues until Harry hits the door jamb.  He stumbles, jaw tight, looking anywhere but Tom until long, elegant fingers catch his chin.  Tom tilts his face up, breath hot on Harry’s lips, and leans in.

“Stop,” Harry croaks.

Tom does.

“You need—You need to sleep.”  Harry mumbles as Tom searches his face, as Harry burns.  “You need to clear your head, Tom.”

“Come with me.”

He says it like it’s so simple.  Like crawling into bed together was the answer to everything.

“ _What_?” Harry presses back until the wood of the archway digs in painfully. 

“Come to bed with me,” Tom cants his head, eyes on Harry’s mouth again.  “Show me love, Harry.”

Their lips brush, and Harry trembles. 

“Physical affection does not equate to _love_ , Tom.”  His voice is rough.  He cannot deny that Tom’s touch affects him.

If Tom were to attempt anything further, Harry fears he will be ruined.

“Come to bed with me anyways.”

“ _Tom_ ,” Harry’s voice cracks, and he pushes the older man away, if only for respite from the tempting heat of Tom’s body.  “You need _sleep_.  Not anything else.”

Tom sighs, hand dragging through his unusually unkempt hair.  “You’re right.”

“Of _course_ I am.”  Harry nods, but his hands are shaking.  “And while you sleep, I’ll look for the counter spell that brought me here so I can get out of your way faster.”

 _So that I can get away from your cunning eyes, your long fingers, your wrinkling nose, your_ mouth.

Something harsh settles upon Tom’s fair features.  He scowls, glancing over his shoulder at the stacks of books by the fire.  Facing Harry again, he huffs out a tight breath and nods.

Between his fingers, he toys with his ring before holding it out to Harry.  “Here.”

Harry blinks.  “You want me to--?”

“Just for a while.  I won’t get any rest with it.”  Tom shrugs, looking so nonchalant about offering Harry a piece of his soul.  “I’ll keep thinking about how to fix it.”

“Right.”  Harry mutters, lifting a tentative hand.

Tom places it in his palm, then folds Harry’s fingers around it, lingering before withdrawing.  The metal is cold.  The stone hums as if in recognition.  Tom’s soul whispers. 

Dazed, Harry listens to it.  It is a subtle, quiet thing.  Nothing like the rage Harry’d felt in the locket.  Harry wonders why that is.

“I’m trusting you with that,” Tom says, and Harry’s head snaps up.  “Try not to destroy it the way you did in your timeline.”

Harry laughs.  “Couldn’t if I wanted to,” he admits and clarifies when Tom tilts his head.  “No Basilisk fang to do it with.”

“Is _that_ how you--?” Tom’s eyes are wide and impressed.

“A story for another time.”  Harry promises.  “Go rest.  You can interrogate me later.”

“Of course,” Tom’s lips purse and Harry quickly looks away from them.  “Wake me at noon?  We have some errands to run, some books to pick up.”

Harry gives a hesitant nod.  “Okay.”

Without another word, Tom brushes by, leaving Harry standing there in the parlor.

* * *

 

At quarter past, Harry finally gives up on the search for Tom’s room after coming upon the _third_ drawing room the small manor had to offer.  Sighing, he pulls his glasses off in order to scrub a hand over his face.

“Dawley,” he calls, standing at the center of the brightly illuminated drawing space with his eyes shut until Dawley _pops_ into place at his side.

“Yes, master’s guest?” the elf peers suspiciously up at him, as if waiting for Harry to demand something unreasonable like cleaning supplies or the like.

“Can you take me to your master’s room?” Harry asks, already extending a hand.  “I need to wake him, per his request.”

“Of course, master’s guest.” Dawley’s long, knobby fingers wrap round Harry’s softer ones.

They _pop_ into place just outside of two large, ornate double doors.  Harry belatedly realizes that this is just down the hall from his own rooms.  His head tilts and he stares quizzically at the doors a moment, wondering how he’d missed them on the first go.  When he recognizes the disillusionment charm on them, he falters.

Perhaps Tom did not want Harry waking him, but Dawley instead.  Perhaps Harry had misunderstood.

“Would you go in and wake him?” he asks Dawley politely.

“Dawley cannot.”  The elf shakes his head.  “Dawley is not allowed in master’s rooms.”

“Not allowed?”

Dawley nods, fidgeting on the floor at Harry’s feet.  “No one is allowed.”

“Then how are we supposed to wake him?” Harry frowns, reaching out.

He’s about to give up.  To go back to the parlor and keep researching.  Tom can wake on his own, when he’s good and ready; Harry won’t intrude.  He’s about to retreat when, with the barest brush of his fingers, the doors click open.

Blinking, Harry watches as the doors swing open.  He frowns, glancing down at Dawley, who merely shrugs up at him.

Chuffed, Harry steps timidly into the dark room, easing in and letting his eyes adjust gradually.  The room is large, but not offensively so.  While there’s a writing desk by one of the curtained windows that looks well-used, the only other things in the room are a wardrobe and Tom’s rather large bed.  Harry jumps when the door clicks shut quietly behind him. 

There’s a curse on his tongue that he bites back.  He doesn’t want to startle Tom into wakefulness and risk getting hexed.  In the gold light that filters in through the edges of silk curtains drawn across the windows, Harry can see Tom at the center of his large bed, his back to the doors.  Creeping over, Harry hisses a muffling spell on his creeking chucks, but by the time it is cast, it is too late.  Tom twists over in bed, propping up onto an elbow in order to regard his intruder.

“Were you planning to wake me with a kiss?” he asks.

Harry’s face goes warm.  “You don’t let your house elf in here?”

Snorting, Tom pushes up, blankets pooling round his hips and revealing quite a bit of fair skin that Harry tries _desperately_ not to look at.  “I don’t let _anyone_ in here.”

“You let _me_.”

Tom glances his way, eyes catching sight of the Gaunt ring settled on Harry’s hand, and smiles.  “You’re different.”

“Hardly more trust worthy than a house elf,” Harry shakes his head.

Sighing with an air of melodrama, Tom tosses his sheets aside, revealing _more_ skin, and Harry turns about sharply, facing the closed doors, yelp dying somewhere at the back of his throat.  “You don’t know _how_ to take a compliment, do you?” Tom asks.

“Not really,” Harry’s voice is high, higher than it should be.  “I’ll just let you get dressed.”

He goes for the door.  The lock clicks just as his fingers wrap over the handle.

With a strangled sound, his forehead _thumps_ against the wood.  He mutters something, inaudible even to himself, eyes falling shut.  Behind him, Tom laughs; it’s a rich sound and Harry hates how he shivers because of it.

“So polite,” Tom says, but his tone is chiding.  “There’s no reason to be shy, Harry.”

“Is there a _reason_ you’ve locked me in here with you?” Harry retorts.

“Actually, yes.”  Harry can hear the sound of clothes rustling, of Tom dressing, and he lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he’d held.  “I had a dream about you.”

Harry frowns.  “A dream?”

Tom hums.  “More a nightmare, really.  It was in that graveyard, the one you showed me, the one my father is buried in.”

He knows it.  He knows that graveyard better than the one his parents are buried in at Godric’s Hollow.

His jaw works.  “What happened?”

“It’s mostly a blur, really.”  Harry hears the wardrobe open and then shut.  “But you were there, as you are now.  I know you were younger, though.  In the memory, you were so frightened.  You were in so much pain.”

A small noise escapes him.  Behind his glasses, he squeezes his eyes shut.

He hates that graveyard.

“I was there too,” Tom mutters, voice going a bit softer, almost dreamy.  “And the other me.  Voldemort.”

There is a pause. 

Harry counts each breath.  His heart is racing again.  Tom has always been adept at getting his blood to flow.  Even now, even with just a memory.

“I watched him kill you, Harry.”  Tom says.  “And I couldn’t do anything to stop it.”

Harry swallows once.  Twice.

“Did you want to?” he asks.

“More than anything,” Tom confesses.

Harry lets out a shaky laugh.  “I was not the one who died that night, Tom.”

“But someone did,” Tom guesses.  “Someone you cared for.”

“ _Yes_ ,” Harry whispers.

“Who?” Tom asks, and then his hand is on Harry’s shoulder, and Harry wonders when he got so close.  “Tell me.”

Turning, Harry peers up at Tom and hunts for deception on his face.  He frowns when he cannot find any.

“His name was Cedric Diggory.”  Harry tells him, Tom’s hand still warm on his shoulder.  “He was my friend.”

Tom’s throat works, and he nods.  “Did I--?”

“No.”

“Oh,” Tom falters, brows furrowing.  “...did Voldemort?”

Harry shakes his head, a wistful, almost proud sensation filling his chest.  “There was a man—Pettigrew.  Peter Pettigrew.  He’d been a friend of my parents.  He’d betrayed them.”

“To Voldemort.”

“Yes.”

“Did he survive?”

“No.”

Tom’s head cants, his hand coming up to brush Harry’s hair away from his face.  “How?”

“It was at my own hands,” Harry feels choked by the sudden wash of shame, and Tom scowls down at him.

“You feel guilty for it.”

It isn’t a question.

“I feel guilty for every life lost during that time.”  Harry shudders as Tom’s thumb traces the scar on his forehead.  “Even Voldemort’s.”

Tom wavers, his voice reverent when he speaks.  “I don’t understand you.”

“You don’t have to,” Harry mumbles.  “You just have to help me get home.”

Tom’s hand drops abruptly and he straightens from where he’d been leaning into Harry’s space.  He smooths down his shirt, then his hair, taking a step back. 

“I suppose we better get moving then,” he says and offers Harry his arm.  “Shall we?”

Harry takes it.

* * *

 

“I _thought_ you said we were just picking up some books,” Harry grouses as a young Madam Malkin takes his measurements.

Tom smiles at him, the smarmy git, through the mirror.  “And we will be.  But you need proper clothes for the party on New Year’s Eve.  Especially since I plan to have you at my side.”

“What party?”

“The Malfoys’ party.”

Harry groans.

At his side, Madam Malkin tuts.  “None of that now.  Arms out.”

“I really dislike you right now.”  Harry frowns at Tom through his reflection.

Tom’s grin goes wicked.  “What do you think about green for his robes?  To match his eyes.”

“ _Oh_ ,” Madam Malkin breathes.  “What a wonderful idea, Mr. Riddle.”

Harry hates everything.

* * *

 

Knockturn Alley is not nearly as dark or dank as it is in Harry’s time.  He wonders if it’s the fresh layer of snow that fell during the storm the night previous or if the place has yet to earn its shadows.

There is no doubt that is still a place full of dark witches and wizards and even darker places of business, but it does not chill Harry the way it had when he was a child.  That may have to do with Tom’s hand on his, guiding him through the twists and turns of the narrow paths.  Harry tries not to focus too hard on it, or the way Tom’s fingers curl tight over his.  Or the way his own seemed to cling at Tom’s. 

Borgin and Burke’s looks just as gloomy as Harry is used to.  It is dim inside, though a bit more clean, and Harry and Tom stop in the entryway to stamp the snow from their shoes.

Harry rubs his hands together, breathing into them to warm his numb fingers.  Next to him, Tom frowns, uncoiling his own scarf to drape it over Harry’s shoulders before stepping away to call out into the shop—identifying himself for his employers in case they’re listening.  Harry touches the soft wool of his scarf, face pink from the cold, and as Tom walks toward the back of the shop, he watches him.  In his chest, something odd unfurls, warm just beneath his breastbone.

“Remind me to get you some gloves,” Tom mutters over his shoulder, and Harry’s cheeks puff out. 

“I _can_ get my own things, you know.” Harry grumbles. 

“You’ve no funds while you’re here,” Tom corrects.  “So you’ll accept my charity and my help.”

Rolling his eyes, Harry trails after him.  “What are we here for?”

“There are some books in the back,” Tom gestures with his head, ducking beneath the counter.  “Time travel and wish magic.  Not for the common public.”

“Indeed not, Mr. Riddle.”  Borgin’s oily voice hisses as he steps out from the shadows, much to Harry’s surprise and Tom’s amusement.  “So why are you offering to show it to this young man?”

“How is Caractacus doing, Mr. Borgin?” Tom deflects with a charming smile.

Teeth yellowed, Borgin sneers their way.  “Do _not_ avoid the subject, Mr. Riddle.”

“You see, Mr. Borgin, my friend Harry here is a man out of time.”  Tom beams, innocent as can be even as he lifts the divider on the countertop to tug Harry close by the dark material of his robes.

Harry makes a disgruntled sound at the back of his throat.  He tries to shirk away, but Tom holds him fast at his side as Borgin eyes the pair of them.

“A time traveler?” he asks in that slick voice of his, sizing Harry up with a keen eye.

His gaze makes Harry feel filthy.  His skin crawls as Borgin’s eyes linger.

“Purely accidental, mind.”  Tom adds, already pulling Harry toward the backdoor.  “A gift gone wrong.  I’ve promised the poor thing I’d help him.”

Borgin huffs about, flapping his hand at them.  “Fine.  What you do on your own time is yours.  But you know the rules.”

“Of course,” Tom nods, hand insistent at Harry’s lower back as he pushes Harry through the door to the back stockroom.  “Just here to look, nothing more.”

When they’re finally alone in the back, Harry lets out a tight breath.  Tom follows suit, offering Harry a wry grin as he tugs his own robes straight.

“That man is a _menace_.”

Harry snorts indelicately.  “Don’t know how you can work with him.  He’s always unnerved me.”

A fine brow lifts.  “Spend a lot of time perusing shops on Dark Arts and artifacts?”

Harry’s face warms.  He plucks at some lent on his robes.  “I accidentally landed in the fire place here when I was twelve,” Harry murmurs, gaze down.  “It was my first time using the floo network.  It wasn’t pretty.”

Tom’s lips thin as he bites back his mirth.  It is a good look on him, amusement, but it doesn’t keep Harry from wanting to hit him.  With a childish huff, Harry turns away, heading for the bookshelves toward the back of the large storage room.  Tom laughs as he follows.

They sidle up to the shelves without another word, Harry tense and Tom still fighting off his glee.  As Harry pokes through a few musty volumes, thick and weighty, Tom hunts for a specific text.  Harry watches out of the corner of his eye for a long, quiet moment as Tom mutters to himself, gaze avid on the inlayed titles on leather spines.  It is such a human thing to do, and Harry is struck by it, stilling as he studies Tom over the edge of the book he has in hand.  When Tom glances his way, their eyes locking for a fraction too long, Harry forces his attentions back to the text he’s halfheartedly thumbing through.

He misses the way Tom smiles, the way his mouth twitches up to reveal perfectly neat white teeth.  He misses the devious look that burns in Tom’s eyes briefly before the elder boy goes back to searching through the rows of books.

Slowly, ever so slowly, Tom moves closer to Harry.  Harry, oblivious to Tom’s motion only because he is so busy minding his attention _away_ from Tom, does not notice until Tom is right there, heat rolling off of him as he crowds Harry against the bookcase.  The line of Harry’s shoulders goes rigid when Tom’s chest presses to his back, arms reaching above Harry’s head, long fingers trailing over the line of books on the top shelf casually.  Harry feels suddenly quite small.

“I can move,” he offers, throat tight.

“Nonsense,” Tom presses flush against him, words a low hum in Harry’s ear.  “I quite like you where you are.”

There is heat climbing up Harry’s neck.  Horrible, maddening heat that burns his face and coils in his belly.  It is near unbearable, some mix between shame, embarrassment, and worse still: longing. 

It is the longing that frightens him most.  The yearning that has clawed its way into his chest and made itself at home.  The yearning Harry started feeling somewhere between now and, he thinks, the first time Tom looked at him with hunger in his eyes.  Since Tom kissed him, certainly, the day previous, that has left Harry wanting nothing more than to feel those lips on his again.  He can hear his own pulse beneath the warm breath at his ear, on his neck, and it is so thunderous that he wouldn’t be surprised if Tom could hear it too.

Tom’s fingers trail down slow.  They linger here and there, and Harry watches them with keen eyes from behind his spectacles. 

By the time he realizes Tom is trapping him against the bookshelves, it is too late.  He jumps as Tom brackets his arms around him, hands resting on the lip of the shelf in front of him as Tom presses more solidly to Harry.  Harry drops the book he’s holding when Tom tilts his head and presses an open mouthed kiss to his neck, just under his ear.  Jerking, Harry’s elbow drives back, making harsh contact with Tom’s diaphragm.  With a soft _oof_ , Tom steps back, cradling his stomach with a hand, the other still balanced on the shelf just to Harry’s left.

It gives him enough space to twist around, glare haughty, hand on his neck where Tom’s lips had been.  Where Tom’s lips had nearly branded him.  “ _What_ are you _doing_?”

“For a wizard, you use an awful lot of physical violence.”  Hair in his face, Tom grins, buts it’s something of a grimace.  “Sorry.  Couldn’t help myself.”

“Couldn’t--?” Harry’s brow furrows.  “Tom, you can’t just accost people on a whim.  Particularly not _me_ people.”

Tom grunts.  “Yes, well, I’ll provide a bit of warning next time.  If only to avoid the bruises.”

“No,” Harry shakes his head, pressing back against the shelves.  “There won’t _be_ a next time.”

“Why ever not?”

Frowning, Harry gestures to him.  “I told you earlier, this isn’t how you learn love.  You can’t just pretend.  You have to—to _want_.  To _choose_.”

Something dangerous burns low and bright in Tom’s eyes.  He shuffles back forward the step he’d lost, crowding Harry back.  Sucking in a sharp breath, Harry tries to keep as much space between them as possible.  He wants to go for his wand, but the _thrill_ that ripples through him at their proximity has him wavering.

He thinks he hates this.  Or that he should hate this.  He has not feared Voldemort or Tom Riddle in a very long time, but he is fearful now.  Of Tom.  Of the hungry look on his face.  Of his own treacherous desire.  Of his pounding heart.  He is afraid of this man and what he might do to Harry.  Of this man and the keen knowledge that it would be _so easy_ to fall for his gentile features, his cunning mind, his delicate confusion and want for understanding of what he knows not.  Of this man and the desperate fear Harry has seen in him.

In front of him, Tom moves.  He brackets Harry in again; with his arms and with his body.  There is such a heat between them that Harry thinks he might start to sweat.  He wishes he hadn’t taken Tom’s scarf.

Tongue darting out, Harry wets his lips nervously.  Tom’s gaze drops to them, pupils wide.  Harry shivers.

“I do want,” Tom says in such a hushed voice that it sends Harry’s insides rattling.  “I want _you_ , Harry Potter.”

Swallowing, Harry shakes his head again.  “Lust is not love either.”

“I know lust.” Tom reaches for him, brushing Harry’s fringe back away from his forehead, fingers lingering in his hair.  “This is more than that.”

Harry cannot breathe.

“I want you,” Tom’s fingertips draw down the side of Harry’s face.  “I _covet_ you.  Your knowledge.  Your strength.  Your kindness.  I have never desired someone’s _kindness_ before, Harry.”

Harry’s eyes go soft.  “Of _course_ you have, Tom—“

“Not like this,” Tom denies, catching Harry by the chin and tipping his face up.  “Not like I do yours.”

Harry clutches at the shelves behind him.

“I’m drawn to you.  I _crave_ you—Your mind, your voice, your _touch_.”  Tom frowns, eyes on Harry’s mouth, thumb tracing the full bow of Harry’s lower lip.  “I don’t understand it.  You’ve bewitched me.  I haven’t felt these things since I was—“

Something harsh settles into Tom’s eyes.  His gaze flits up to lock with Harry’s. 

“I don’t like it.”

Harry can only offer a meek shrug, still shaking; his own want a heavy weight on his shoulders and in his belly.  A guilty want.  “I’m sorry,” he mumbles.

“You should be,” Tom insists, but he’s leaning in—leaning _down_. 

Harry is not ready to feel Tom’s mouth fully on his.  He doesn’t think he will ever be ready, but he knows that if Tom kisses him, he won’t be able to give it up.  Because, like Tom, Harry finds addiction when they touch. 

He finds a draw, a magnetism, that might be some side effect of being Voldemort’s horcrux, but it might also be fate.  Their threads have been entwined for forever.

So instead of letting what might be inevitable happen, Harry shoves Tom away.  Tom stumbles back, expression twisting in anger and confusion.  Ignoring Tom’s hurt in order to preserve his own sanity, Harry crouches to pluck up the book he’d dropped.  When he straightens again, Tom has carefully schooled his features as he watches Harry tuck the book back into place on the shelf.

“Harry—“

“Stop.”  Harry holds up a hand.  “This is—Enough, Tom.  I don’t know what _game_ you’re playing, but I will not be charmed by you.”

The sting of rejection is evident on Tom’s face, offense laden in his tone.  “I don’t want to charm you.  Don’t you understand?  I don’t have to _pretend_ with you.  You know exactly what I am.”

Throat working, Harry nods.  “Then I’m sorry, but I can’t.  You must understand how difficult this is.  How _impossible_.”

“Impossible?”

“I don’t belong here, Tom.”  Harry shrugs helplessly.  “And as much as I _hope_ you will not become Voldemort, in my time, you become the _monster_ that _murdered_ my parents and caused the deaths of _countless_ others.”

Jaw tight, Tom shakes his head.  “I will _not_ turn into that _thing_ , Harry.  There are things that I am, things that I do, but I _refuse_ to be _that_.”

“I hope so, Tom.”  Harry smiles, small and sad.  “I _really_ do.”

Harry’s palms itch.  He wants to _touch_ Tom, he realizes.  He wonders if this is what Tom feels.

The room is suddenly stifling.  Palming the back of his head, Harry clears his throat.

“I need, um… I need some air.”  Harry gestures to the bookshelves.  “You keep looking or whatever.  When you’re done, come find me.”

Without another word, without looking at Tom, Harry moves to brush by.  Tom catches his wrist.  It sends a wash of heat quaking along Harry’s nerves until the warmth settles low in his stomach.

Tom’s grip is loose.  It would be easy to break, to pull from, but Harry doesn’t.  Tom clears his throat, shifting and looking—of all things— _awkward_.  He digs into the pocket of his robes and pulls out his gloves before placing them in Harry’s hand.  Harry’s fingers curl tentatively over the material, their fingertips brushing.

“Forgive me,” Tom says.

Harry nods slowly.  “Forgiven.”

“I’ll come find you after I’m done here.”

He lets Harry go.  With some trepidation, Harry takes his leave.

* * *

 

The last person Harry expects to meet on the streets of Diagon Alley is Hepzibah Smith.  He nearly runs her over, so lost he is in the slow snow fall and the mess of his own thoughts.

Her shopping goes spilling out.  Harry curses and instantly crouches to pick up the strewn items, apologies a litany over his lips.  She waves him off with a smile and a laugh, looking positively garish in an absurd clash of violets, magentas, and fur lined robes, hat, gloves.  She is a large woman, and it takes Harry a fraction of a second to recognize her.

“I’m so sorry,”  Harry mutters, offering her a restored bag.

“Nonsense, boy!” she laughs.  “No harm done.”

Harry shakes his head.  “I should have been watching where I was going with more care.”

“Well, there’s no doubt of that, dear.”  Hepzibah smiles.  “But I can’t say I mind being run over by such a lovely young gentleman as you.”

Flustered, Harry opens his mouth and then shuts it again.  He should be used to compliments—he’s the Boy Who Lived, the Chosen One, after all— but they always throw him off guard. 

A hand lands at the small of his back.  Harry startles, head whipping about, only to still at the sight of Tom’s very broad, very _fake_ smile.  He’s surprised Tom found him so quickly.  Casting a subtle glance skyward, he notes that the sun has dipped further than he thought behind voluminous clouds above.  More time had passed than he had realized.

“Hepzibah,” Tom greets.  “Always such a pleasure.”

“Oh, Mr. Riddle!” Hepzibah gushes.  “Just the man I was hoping to run into.”

“Instead you ran into my friend.”  Tom grins, charm like honey.  “Have you met Harry, Hepzibah?”

“Friend,” she hums, holding out a hand.  “Not yet, but I was about to.”

When Harry hesitates, Tom leans in, voice a hushed whisper that only he can hear.  “Kiss it.”

Polite smile faltering, Harry takes her hand in his and bows slightly to press his lips to the supple leather covering it.  She practically coos, tittering a number of compliments their way as Harry straightens out again.

At his back, Tom’s hand shifts to Harry’s waist, coaxing him closer.  Hepzibah eyes them, giddy and flush.

“Oh, you’re both just _lovely_ ,” she breathes.  “Are you spending the holidays together?”

“Something like that,” Tom nods.  “How was your Christmas, Hepzibah?”

“Lonely without your charming face there, but I can see you had your hands full.”  Harry’s face goes red, and Hepzibah giggles, then utters a soft _oh_.  “But that does remind me: I’ve got something for you, Tom, dearest.”

“You shouldn’t’ve.”

“Hush, hush.  It’s the least I can do, you’ve been so sweet.”  Hepzibah digs into her robes, and Harry chances a glance up at Tom, seeing the stiffness of his posture and the tightness around his eyes he’s growing accustom to witnessing in the company of others. 

Tom’s fingers curl into the robes at Harry’s hip.  Shuddering, Harry bites the inside of his cheek and tries not to think about Tom’s hands or eyes or mouth. 

“Here we are!” Hepzibah exclaims, offering Tom a small box with a bow on top.

Tom takes it with his free hand.  “Thank you.  I’ll have to send you my gift when I get home.  I’d meant to deliver it in person, but—“

“A pretty face distracted you,” Hepzibah nods with a wicked solemnity.  “I understand, dear.  Now open it, open it.”

Tom does with some amount of reluctance.  The ribbon around it unravels, and he pops the box open with care, smile forced until he catches what’s nestled within it.  Almost instantly, genuine shock overcomes Tom’s features, and when Harry spies what is within, he understands.

Resting on a bed of velvet, Salazar Slytherin’s locket gleams up at them.  Tom’s fourth horcrux.

“I heard from an acquaintance of an acquaintance that was a classmate and fellow Slytherin of yours, that at one point you were positively _enraptured_ with the old cofounder.  And, well, I’ve seen you eyeing it once or twice before, so I figured… why not?  Not like I’m going to do much with it, other than let it collect dust.”  Hepzibah beams.  “Do you like it?”

Tom, for once, is speechless.

Harry nudges him.  “Tom.”

“Sorry,” Tom blinks up, that plastic smile back in place, but there is a softness that was not there previously.  “It’s wonderful, Hepzibah.  I can’t thank you enough.”

“Of course, dear.”  Hepzibah seems positively tickled.  “Now, I’ve some more errands to run.  You two have a _wonderful_ evening.”

She bustles off before either of them can say anymore, though Harry offers a tentative wave as she goes.  When they’re alone again, Harry turns to Tom.

He’s staring at the locket.  Snow is still falling, light and barely there.  It catches in Tom’s hair, on his lashes, melting against his cheek.  He won’t stop looking at the locket. 

Another snowflake lands on his cheek.  Harry reaches up and brushes it away before he can stop himself.

Tom’s dark eyes flit up from the small box, from the necklace inside of it.  Harry moves to pull his hand back, but Tom catches it.  In an echo of their morning, Tom presses his cheek to Harry’s palm and even through the gloves Tom lent him, he can feel Tom’s warmth.  His eyes flutter shut, lashes thick on his cheeks that are flush and pink from the cold.

In his chest, something stirs.  Harry shuffles close, eyes on Tom’s mouth.  He doesn’t kiss him.

“We should head back,” Harry murmurs.  “If you found what you needed, we should head back.”

Tom hums, snapping the box shut and placing it in his pocket without moving from Harry’s touch.  “We should.”

They Disapparate without another word.

* * *

 

When they land, Tom does not let go of Harry’s hand.  Head swimming, Harry follows as Tom leads him down the short, narrow path to the house.

Inside, Tom calls for Dawley and asks him to prepare tea for them in the parlor before turning his focus on Harry.  Wordlessly, he steps into Harry’s space until Harry’s toes bump against his.  He unwinds the scarf from round Harry’s neck first and drops it to the floor without a care.  Harry wants to protest, but he doesn’t know what he would say.  Tom isn’t kissing him, isn’t even trying.  There’s nothing for him to protest.

Watching as Tom takes his hands, he chews his lower lip and shivers as Tom peels away each glove slowly.  Tom lingers over his right hand, thumb circling the Gaunt ring where it is still resting on Harry’s finger.  His eyes flit up from the ring to Harry’s face, and then he brings Harry’s hand up, lips brushing along his knuckles.  In his chest, his breath arrests, and Harry can do nothing more than stare as Tom rotates Harry’s hand over with gentle fingers.

He kisses Harry’s fingertips.  Then the center of his palm.  Then the heel of it.  Then his wrist. 

Harry’s heart pounds in his head.  He should stop this; he knows he should.  In his chest, he can feel the soft, feathering turnings of longing.  He feels breathless with it, his lungs heavy.

“Tom,” his voice cracks.

“I know,” Tom sighs.  “I just needed—I was going to kill her for that locket, Harry.  But you showed up and changed _everything_.”

“I didn’t—“

“You did,” Tom breathes, mouth lingering at his pulse, and Harry fingers twitch.  “You changed everything.  You've turned my plans completely on their head.  You've left me more angry, more confounded, more _frightened_ than I ever have been.  And now… Now my lips are raw from the _thought_ of you.”

There’s a soft sound.  Harry realizes distantly that it came from him.

“I crave you so much that my body aches.”  Tom confesses, and there is none of the falseness about him that there had been in Diagon Alley.

Here, they are just Tom and Harry.  Here, Tom is unrepentant in his earnestness.  Here, there is nowhere for Harry to run.

“I won’t pretend to understand it,” Tom says, eyes on Harry’s.  “But I know I have not _felt_ this much since I was a child.  I have not let myself.  I know that there is something here I have _never_ felt before.  I know that I could die for a single kiss.”

Harry feels weak. “This is a terrible idea.”

Tom’s smile is wide and genuine and breathtaking.  “Probably.”

Before Harry can think twice, he curves his hand along Tom’s jaw.  “Kiss me then,” he breathes.

Tom does.

* * *

 

Tom’s lips knock the breath from Harry’s lungs.  It is nothing like the clumsy machinations of his fifth year.  Nothing like the burn, the messy heat, of desperate moments before a war he was too young for.  There is nothing messy or clumsy about it, though it certainly burns.

In his chest, something turns over, and Harry feels heat spread—through his veins, coiling out from the core of him until his limbs are suffused with it.  His blood rushes; he can hear it in his ears, feeling pulsing in his body.  It calls out to Tom; it sings for him.  Everything narrows down to Harry’s hand at Tom’s jaw and the press of their lips.

Harry has never felt this before.  This magnetism.  This electricity.  His skin feels alive with Tom’s touch.  Like he could vibrate right out of it.

It is such a simple kiss.  Just their lips pressing solidly together.  Their noses bump as their mouths slant more firmly.  Harry’s eyes shut; he sways closer; Tom reaches for him.

Fingers curl round the back of Harry’s neck, resting at his nape.  Their mouths part, so briefly it nearly doesn’t happen, before the space between them is lost, eaten up by the endless matter of their longing.  Harry sighs—so softly, so _sweetly_ —and Tom hums against his lips, drawing him closer by the waist.

Hands falling to clutch at Tom’s shoulders, Harry rolls up slow onto his toes.  The fingers at his nape press ever so slightly, and Harry cants his head under their gentle coaxing.  Harry’s fingers curl into the soft material of Tom’s robes.  They part for a breath—a gasp—and then meet again, mouths seeking and lips lingering.

There is none of the roughness Harry might have expected if he’d ever expected this.  Tom’s arm tightens round his waist, hand bunching in the material of Harry’s clothes, and it is possessive without making Harry feel like something to be possessed.  Tugging Harry against his chest, Tom makes another pleased sound, pressing a kiss to Harry’s lower lip, the corner of his mouth, the cleft of his chin, lingering in each spot a second shy of too long.  Harry quivers.

“We—“ Tom kisses him again, hushes him if only for a moment longer, and then pulls back to meet Harry’s gaze.  “We should stop,” Harry says.

“I don’t ever want to stop.”  Tom breathes, eyes flitting over Harry’s face.

Harry wants to say _I know_ or _me either_ or _kiss me again, I’ll show you the love that you never had_.  He says none of this.  Instead, he withdraws with reluctance from Tom’s embrace.

Palming the back of his head, face flush and gaze averted, Harry clears his throat.  “We should get back to researching.  Missed nearly a whole day of it.”

Tom lets out a soft sound, expression collecting.  “Yes, you’re right.  Shall we?”

Harry nods.


	6. in my blood

here is what the boy said to the sea:  
take my life, but do not take   
my love from me.   
and the sea remembered.

—           E. C. | _here is a story in four lines_

* * *

 

Fingers brush his hair from his face.  Harry stirs, groaning softly. 

When he opens his eyes, he finds Tom.  His glasses are digging painfully into the side of his face, a book propped open on his chest.  In the hearth, the fire burns low, near just embers, but from his spot curled up on the settee, Harry can still feel its warmth.  At his side, sitting just on the edge of the plush cushions, Tom peers down at him with something unfathomable in his eyes.

He lets Tom touch him; lets those long fingers card through the mess of his hair.  The yellow light of the fire dances over their skin, painting them in gold.  Tom’s hand curves alongside the line of Harry’s jaw, thumb dragging over his cheek.  Lips parted and eyes heavy, Harry shifts.

“Were you going to kiss me awake?” Harry throws Tom’s words back at him, voice hushed.

“I was contemplating it,” Tom admits and something in Harry’s chest flutters.

“What time is it?”

“Nearly dawn,” Tom mutters, eyes intent on Harry’s mouth, Harry’s nose, Harry’s brow.  “There’s a storm rolling in.”

Propping himself up onto his elbows, Harry frowns.  “Have you slept?”

“Are you worried?”

“You should take better care of yourself.”

“You’re so kind,” Tom muses and his fingers trail up to trace the scar above Harry’s brow.  “I’m a murderer, and you’re worried about my rest.”

Harry searches Tom’s face.  “Are you planning on killing again?”

“Planning?  No.”  Tom shakes his head.

“What about muggles?”

“What _about_ muggles?”

“Still planning on ruling over them?”

Tom’s nose wrinkles, and Harry wants to kiss it.  “Why in the world would I want to do that?”

“More power?”

Tom shakes his head again.  “They’re _weak_.  Filthy things.  I’ve no use for them.”

Harry’s lips press thin.  He doesn’t try to argue.

Hand dropping from Harry, Tom places it carefully with his other in his lap, looking rather reserved.  Perhaps even guarded.  “Besides, I believe you’d be rather disappointed in me,” he says.

Canting his head, Harry’s brows draw together.  “You care what I feel?  What I think?”

“Yes,” Tom says, though it’s tentative, and his expression pinches.  “I wish I didn’t, but I… I want you.  And if what it takes to have you is something as simple as avoiding murder, I shall persevere against such actions.  When I can.”

“Why me, Tom?”

“Because you’re the only person I know who has treated me as nothing more or less than human.  You argue with me, and yet you’re kind to me.  You offered to teach me to be _better_ —not good, not bad, not _powerful_.  Just…” Tom sighs and shrugs, at a loss.  “Just better.”

Harry wonders when exactly he offered Tom that.  He can’t remember doing it, but he must have.  Because that is exactly what he wants for Tom.  To be _better_.  To _have_ better.

“And when I leave?” Harry asks, then frowns.  “ _If_ I find a way to leave?”

Tom’s mouth sets into a grim line.  “That’s why I woke you.”

“What do you mean?”

A heavy sigh leaves Tom.  He bends over and pulls the book he’d brought from Borgin and Burke’s—open and marked—over to them from the coffee table.  He passes it to Harry, who takes it gingerly.  It takes him a moment before he recognizes the moons drawn in delicate detail over the pages.

He touches them, eyes wide, and then looks up at Tom.  Tom has the sphere balanced carefully between his fingers.

“I was tempted to destroy it in hopes that it would prevent it from taking you away from here,” Tom admits.  “But I made you a vow, and I intend to keep it.”

Harry knows that means he’s afraid what would happen if he tried.  He’s afraid Harry might disappear the second he attempted such a thing.

“How long do I have?” Harry asks.

“Seven nights from the moment you fulfill whatever act it is you needed to perform to satisfy the charm,” Tom says and offers the orb to Harry.  “The second it started ticking, you fulfilled that _need_.  It has been counting down to take you home ever since.”

“Since Christmas.”  Harry breathes and cradles the orb close.  “It’s been ticking since Christmas.”

“Two more nights, then.”

“Two more nights,” Harry nods, almost absent.

Tom watches him for a long and quiet moment.  He rubs a tired hand over his face.

“When you go, I cannot promise _goodness_.”  Tom states and Harry looks up at him.  “I am not a _good_ person, and I do not necessarily _want_ to be.  But I will be… better.”

Tom looks at him, eyes burning in the dim light.  He reaches for Harry and takes his face in between his hands, as if willing him to believe it.

“I will be better than him.  I will be better.”

Harry shudders.  “I know.”

“I do not want you to go.”

Heart aching, Harry smiles.  “I know.”

“I—“ Tom falters, brushing Harry’s hair back from his forehead again.  “I won’t ever hurt you the way that he did.”

“Is that a vow?” Harry asks.

“Yes.”

He seals it with a kiss.

* * *

 

They sat by the fire for a while longer.  Tom had explained the magic in the gift the Weasley twins had given, and Harry listened intently—

“It’s old magic.  They would make the talismans out of leather pouches.  Always engraved with the     requirement and the seven phases of moon to signify the time that would pass, the time given after fulfilling the requirement.  Not usually strong enough to cross time or perhaps even universes, but I suppose you’re the exception.”

“I always seem to be the exception.”

“Yes.  Yes, I suppose you do.”

\--until he’d understood most of what Tom had to say about it.  He had sat there and imagined Tom as a teacher, as _his_ teacher, and wondered if the theories that usually dangled just beyond his reach would have been easier to understand under Tom’s tutelage.  He had found Tom’s way of speaking arresting, his tone soothing.  Tom, Harry found, was quite good at explaining things.

Harry had told him as much and Tom had given him a sour look.  “You’re just tired.”

“If I’m tired, you must be exhausted.”  Harry had argued.  “We should get some sleep.  Dawn must be right around the corner.”

It’s how Harry found himself in Tom’s bed.  Tom had looked at him with those unfathomable grey eyes and asked Harry to join him.  To sleep with him.  To _just_ sleep with him.

“I don’t want to spend a moment without you,” Tom had confessed, much to Harry’s surprise.  “Not if I’m to lose you in two night’s time.”

Harry hadn’t been able to deny him that.

They sleep well past the first hours of meek light—after stripping down and climbing beneath Tom’s sheets together in nothing but their skivvies, Harry’s face red and Tom’s smile pleased, laying down side by side with the barest space between them—and a gale of wind rattles the manor into the early morning. 

When Harry wakes, sometime before noon, he is being held by strong arms.  He turns over in them after pulling his glasses on and finds Tom’s mouth open, his expression lax, and his hair mussed.  It is incredibly endearing; Harry wonders how in Merlin he earned this man’s trust so efficiently, so completely, that he would be so vulnerable with Harry.

He wonders when Tom drew him so close in their sleep.  He props himself up, head resting on an open palm, and gazes down at him, grateful for the buffer of sheets against all that tempting pale skin.  At his waist, Tom’s arm pulls him closer, warm and weighty against him.  Harry bites the inside of his cheek to keep from smiling. 

Who knew the Dark Lord was a cuddler?

“You’re thinking too loud,” Tom grumbles.

Harry chuckles.  “Am I?”

“Yes.”

“Then what am I thinking about?”

Tom’s left eye opens and he squints up at him.  “Why don’t _you_ tell _me_?”

“Well,” Harry breathes, reaching out with tentative fingers to brush Tom’s hair back from his face.  “To be honest, I was thinking about you.”

Tom hums, smile pleased and lazy, fingers splaying out over Harry’s lower back.  “What about me?”

“How odd this is,” Harry admits in a hushed voice.  “How unexpected.”

“I’m not so sure,” Tom muses, lips pursing as he gazes up at Harry.  “Even in what you’ve told me and what you’ve shown me, I can see that I—rather, that _Voldemort_ was positively _obsessed_ with you.”

Harry nearly chokes.  “What are you saying?”

“That you were made to enrapture me.”

An abrupt laugh spills over Harry’s lips, followed quickly by more as he flops back onto the bed.  He drapes an arm over his face, a hysterical kind of amusement filling him.

“That’s the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard,” Harry manages, voice thick around his mirth.  “Voldemort _enraptured_ by me.”

On his elbow, Tom scowls down at him.  “It’s _true_.”

Peering up, Harry’s laughter fades into the odd chuckle.  Tom is so ardent.

“ _You_ , Harry Potter—“ Tom’s fingers trail up Harry’s bare side, earning a gasp, then a shiver, “—were _made_ to drive me mad.  You were made to destroy me.”

Breath catching, Harry stares up at him, smile slipping.  “Destroy you?”

Humming, Tom nods, hand resting over the steady beat of Harry’s heart.  “In one way or another.”

“What do you mean?”

“In one life, you were my mortal demise.”  Tom replies.  “In this one, you will teach me things, make me feel things I didn’t think possible, only to leave me.  Who knows what you’ll do in the next?”

Throat tight, Harry places a tentative hand over Tom’s where it still rests against his skin.  “Feel things?”

“Not what you think,” Tom whispers, already leaning down.  “But something close to it.”

Harry leans the rest of the way up.  Lips part lips, and Harry sinks his fingers into Tom’s messy hair.  Pieces of it curl round his fingers and Harry pulls Tom closer.

Their bodies press neatly, like pieces of a puzzle sliding into place.  Legs tangle, hips meets, and hands ease over skin.  Tom is a comforting weight above him; Harry quite likes the feel of it, of him, the heat of him, and the steady _thud-thump_ of their hearts pounding somewhere in their chests.  Their tongues touch, slide, taste, and Harry’s heart hitches the same time that Tom’s does.

Arching, Harry urges Tom that much closer.  His body reacts instantly to Tom’s touch, to the way his fingers trace fire down the ladder of his ribs to his hips.  He catches one of Tom’s hands with his own, drawing it back up.  Their fingers lace and clasp tight, and above him, Tom moans.

Something in Harry cracks open.  He isn’t sure what it is, isn’t sure _why_ it is, but it _sings_.  There is a steady _thrum_ , a music that floods his veins, and as Tom finds his home between Harry’s thighs, Harry’s soul _pleads_.

Harry breaks away with a gasp, friction like raw energy rippling up from his core.  Open mouthed and breathless, Harry stares up at Tom, and Tom stares back.  Slowly, _ever so_ slowly, Tom rocks forward.

Head lulling back, Harry curses as another rush of pleasure floods through him, body singing under Tom’s.  He’s hard, he realizes, and so is Tom.  Tom rocks again, nothing but the heat and friction of their bodies rolling together, and Harry moans.  Tom echoes it with a low sound of his own.

He dips down, mouth hot and open against Harry’s neck.  Swallowing thick, Harry’s fingers tighten at the back of Tom’s head, curling further into his hair.  Tom jerks forward sharply and knocks the breath out of him.  Harry gasps and trembles.

This should feel wrong, he thinks.  He should stop this.  It isn’t good, not for either of them.  It will be too hard on them.  It would be easier if they stopped—It would be easier— _It would be easier_.

“Don’t stop,” Harry breathes.

Tom groans and brings their interlocked hands between them.

They fumble a bit.  Tom frees the both of them from the trappings of their underwear as his teeth graze over Harry’s rapidly beating pulse.  Beneath him, Harry keens and arches up.

They do not last long.  Tom finds his end first, like he’d been desperate for it, and Harry quickly follows.

When it is done and they lay there panting, Tom refuses to move from above him, refuses to stop pressing kisses to Harry’s skin.  Harry is the one who finally manages a quiet _scourgify_ , and Tom startles.

“You can do wandless magic?” he asks.

“I’m very powerful, remember?” Harry chirps, trying not to sound as breathless as he is, or feel as proud as he does at impressing Tom again.

“Yes,” Tom breathes, already leaning back in to kiss him again.  “Yes, you are.”

* * *

 

“You never told me, by the way.” Tom mutters, fingers ghosting down Harry’s spine.

He’s been tracing over every inch of him.  He’s vowed to memorize him, all the lines and planes of him, so that he will not be lonely later.  Harry had laughed at the proclamation, finding it ridiculously in character for Tom’s tendency toward obsessiveness.  Then he’d turned over and let Tom start mapping.

“Told you what?” Harry asks over his shoulder, trying to twist and see him better, but Tom quickly presses him back down against the sheets.

Harry snorts.

“Why you’re so kind,” Tom grumbles something about _staying still_.

“To you?”

“To people in general.  Even when you’re uncomfortable, like you were with Borgin, you’re kind.”

Harry hums, chin on his crossed arms.  “My friend Hermione says I’ve got a hero complex.  That I only see the good in people and I try to save them from the bad.  She always says that’s what gets me into trouble most of the time.”

“Your friend Hermione sounds very clever.”  Tom says, thumbs pressing between Harry’s shoulder blades and earning a groan.  “Like that?”

Harry nods.  “My friend Hermione is a muggleborn.”

“Yes, yes.”  Tom presses again, kneading at the tight knots of muscle.  “I know you don’t like my politics or blood status opinions.”

“I’m perfectly comfortable with your ridiculous ignorance and bigotry as long as you aren’t trying to kill, torture, or enslave them.”  Harry huffs, then adds quickly, “or keep them from a proper education.”

“Yes, Harry, dearest.” Tom replies with that slow droll Harry’s become so accustom to.  “So is that why you were kind to _me_?”

“Because of your unfathomable ignorance and prejudice?” Harry quips and hisses when Tom flicks his ear.

“Don’t be dense.”

Chuckling, Harry rubs his ear.  “If you’re asking me if I saw good in you, the answer is yes.  And I hope that someday you’ll see it too.”

Tom’s hands still over Harry’s skin, fingers spread wide over his back.  “You think there’s good in me?”

With a frown, Harry twists about and this time Tom doesn’t stop him.  Gathering Tom’s hands in his, Harry sits up and coaxes Tom to settle in his lap.

He leans up, kissing the corner of Tom’s mouth.  “Of course I do.  Because there is.”

* * *

 

“There’s a quote,” Harry tells him later when they’re still in bed, still wrapped up in one another, learning and lingering with each other’s fingers, lips, bodies.  “It’s in a book I found in my Godfather’s private library.”

“The one Bellatrix LeStrange killed?” Tom asks from his place laying against Harry’s chest, head tucked under Harry’s chin, thumb tracing circles at Harry’s hip.

Harry hums.  “Yes.  It’s a book that hasn’t been written yet.  A muggle book that’s nearly twenty years old in my time.  I imagine Sirius read it when he was my age.”

“What’s the quote?” Tom asks before Harry can lose himself in that state of melancholy that’s been known to catch him when he mentions those he’s lost.

“ _I am strong but also destructive,”_ Harry breathes, carding his fingers idly through Tom’s hair.  “ _I’m restless and harsh and hopeless.  Though I have love inside myself.  It’s just that I don’t know how to use love_.”

They are quiet for a while or maybe only for a moment. 

“I think it reminds me of you,” Harry says.

Tom doesn’t reply.

* * *

 

It’s well into the afternoon before Harry coaxes Tom from the bed.  It is as if touching has opened a floodgate of longing that the both of them feel equally as consumed by.  Harry thinks, if they were to let themselves forget the rest of the world, they would probably drown in it.  In each other.

Harry’s stomach will not let them forget.  It grumbles for attention around three, while Harry and Tom are discussing their favorite—and therefor least favorite—professors.  It takes quite a bit of cajoling to convince Tom to let him out of bed.  Tom is almost delightfully possessive of Harry now that he has some kind of hold; Harry tries not to think about how Tom will cope when he is spirited away to his own future.

Especially after Tom had whispered such soft confessions to him.  Had pressed the words against Harry’s skin, as if to hide them there, but instead they left Harry feeling branded from Tom’s willing but reluctant vulnerability.

They’d shared in equal amounts, though.  Tom told Harry about the orphanage, and Harry told Tom about the Dursleys.  Tom told Harry of his frustration, of his hurt, of his desire to never hurt again; Harry’d confessed of his fears, his pain, and his anger that Voldemort had taken advantage of and used against him countless times.  But then he told Tom about love—love and friendship and acceptance he’d never known.

“I wasn’t a freak anymore,” he’d said.

Tom had sneered, shying away.  “I was.  Dirty blood in the _House of the Pure_.  Always watched by Dumbledore, _condemned_ before I even—“

“Tom,” Harry had stopped him, fingers gentle and gaze soft.  “You’re not a freak.”

Tom had looked so scared, and Harry had ached for him.

“You’re not a freak,” Harry had kissed him then, long and sweet.  “You never were.”

Whatever remained of Tom’s defences had left him then.

So when Harry climbs out of bed to pull some clothes on, Tom’s protests are ceaseless until he catches sight of Harry.  When he goes quiet, Harry turns, still buttoning up the shirt he’d grabbed from the floor.  Tom watches, eyes dark, from his place on the bed, looking like a royalty surrounded by all those soft sheets.

“What?” Harry frowns, hands dropping from the buttons.

Tom shakes his head, sliding from between the sheets.  “You look good in my clothes is all.”

Face warming, Harry glances down at himself, the white shirt just a bit too broad and much longer than his frame demanded.  “Oh,” he moves to undo the buttons.

Tom stops him, hands over his, imposing as he towers above him.  “Leave it.  If you’re going to drag me out of bed, you can at least let me enjoy the sight of you in my things.”

Harry scoffs but doesn’t argue.  “Get dressed, then.  Meet me in the kitchen.”

He makes a quick escape, in nothing but his boxers and Tom’s shirt, the rest of his things gathered up in his arms.  Outside of Tom’s room, his back pressed to the door, Harry tries to get a handle on the feathery turnings rolling endlessly in his chest.  It is a fruitless effort.

On his way to his rooms—to finish getting dressed for the most part—Harry wonders just how this whole thing turned into what it did.  He wonders if, _somewhere_ , his parents are looking down at him and if they do so with pride or with disappointment.  He desperately hopes it is the former, and as he’s tugging his pants up over his hips, he imagines his mother and her wild hair and her eyes that are reflected by his own and he _knows_.

They would be proud of what he’s managed to do for the boy that could have been Voldemort.  They would be proud.

* * *

 

When Tom finds him in the kitchen, he’s humming over the howl of wind outside and the groan of Tom’s home.  Tom watches a while as Harry works, but Harry can feel him there in the doorway.  He crosses his arms over his chest, fingers of one hand at his mouth as he tries not to smile at the sight of Harry carefully skirting around his incredibly irate house elf.

There is a variety of fruit sprawled over the work table and the smell of it is bright and sharp.  Harry cuts them up with an easy precision that had to come from practice.  He sways as he works, to whatever tune he’s humming, and deftly avoids Dawley’s grumbling.

“You’re the oddest wizard I’ve ever met,” Tom declares.

Grinning, Harry glances up from under his fringe only briefly before his focus falls back to the food he’s preparing.  “Yes, but it wouldn’t be fun if I wasn’t.”

Tom grunts.  “What is it that you’re humming?”

“Old song,” Harry shrugs.  “American wizard band that technically isn’t alive yet.”

“How do you know it, if it’s so old?”

“Sirius, he—“ Harry laughs, setting down his paring knife and leaning against the bench.  “He collected things.  Things he was sure to piss off his mum and the like.  He was _particularly_ fond of rock music.”

Tom tilts his head.  “And this song?”

“Came out in the late 70s.”  Harry’s smile goes soft.  “He said my mum loved it.”

Easing into the room, Tom pads over.  He’s pristine in his pressed slacks and his nice shirt; a constant contrast to Harry’s ineffable casualness in nothing but jeans and Tom’s shirt.  He rounds the worktable and Harry offers up his arms without a word.

Tom cuffs up the sleeves in neat, swift movements, smoothing out any wrinkles that might gather along the way.  Watching him, Harry waits.  He is very good at reading Tom—why, he does not know—and he can see the steady process of Tom thinking even with his carefully schooled expression.  Patience, however, is something Harry finds himself in abundance of these days. 

“Will you tell me the name of the song?” Tom asks after he’s finished, already working on rolling up his own sleeves.  “So I can find it when the time comes?”

Harry watches him summon another knife and set to work on an apple.  Skinning it, coring it, slicing it.  Hands delicate and fingers deft.  Curiosity genuine.  Harry watches him, quiet and awed, his smile so broad that his face can barely contain it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am strong but also destructive. I’m restless and harsh and hopeless. Though I have love inside myself. It’s just that I don’t know how to use love.  
> — Clarice Lispector, from Água Viva
> 
> The song mentioned is "Dreams" by Fleetwood Mac.


	7. you said love is touching souls

But my words become stained with your love.  
You occupy everything. You occupy everything.

—           Pablo Neruda | _So That You Will Hear Me_

* * *

 

The room is dark when Tom wakes him.  He’s not sure how Tom convinced him back into his bed the night previous—it had been his smile; his lingering touches; his questions about Harry, his friends, his family; his kisses, sweet and soft and lingering—but Harry had joined him after the sun had set behind stormy grey clouds, and they’d stayed up for a long while just lying next to one another, touching.  The touches of men who knew what they were going to lose.  They’d fallen asleep on their sides, facing one another, but when Harry wakes he can only see shadows and hear the _hiss_ of Parseltongue.

It sends him into action before his drowsy mind can catch up, twisting over in the sheets and pinning Tom down, wand pressing under his jaw.  Reflexes from a time of war.  Tom quickly goes lax and quiet beneath him.

“ _What are you doing_?” Harry hisses, eyes narrowed on the faceless man beneath him, vision blurred without his glasses.

Tom exhales sharply.  “You speak Parseltongue,” he says like he’s confirming something.

Harry blinks.  “What?”

Careful fingers wrap over Harry’s wand hand.  “It’s just me, Harry.”

“…Right,” Harry frowns, hesitant to withdraw, but withdrawing all the same as wakefulness floods him.  “Sorry.  You just—It reminded of—“

When he moves to pull away completely, Tom catches him by the hips.  Stilling in his lap, Harry frowns down at him, fidgeting with his wand.

They’re not as bare as they had been the night—or day—previous, but Harry still grows warm at the compromise of their position.  Though it is not necessarily new, considering the pleasure they had sought and found in one another the afternoon previous, it still sends something in Harry’s stomach fluttering.  He has never been more grateful for something as simple as the cotton t-shirt he went to bed wearing.

“You speak Parseltongue,” Tom repeats.

Harry frowns.  “Is that what you woke me with?”

“You’re avoiding the question.”  Tom says.

With a sigh, Harry summons his glasses, slipping them on and setting his wand on the pillow to the side.  “You haven’t asked me anything,” he mutters.

“ _Harry_.”

“ _Yes_ , I speak Parseltongue.”  Harry scowls down at him.  “ _No_ , I’m not related to Salazar Slytherin.”

“It’s a very rare gift.”  Tom says.

“One that I received from _you_ ,” Harry scrubs his hand over his face.  “From our connection.  The one that formed when Voldemort first attempted to murder me.”

Propping up onto his elbows, Tom peers up at him.  “How would that happen?  How would my abilities pass to you?”

“It’s complicated.”  Harry pulls away from him, tone short.

“Tell me.” Tom insists, catching Harry round the middle and shifting their weight in order to pin Harry down against the soft sheets.

“Is that a demand?”  Harry pushes at his shoulders, practically sneering.  “Or a birthday request?”

Tom falters, as if after everything, he doesn’t expect Harry to know such things about him; then he frowns.  “You’re trying to throw me off.  Tell me.”

“Tom, stop—“

“What is it you _insist_ on hiding from me?” Tom takes Harry by the jaw, and though his grip is firm, it is not painful.  “You know my _everything_.  You have told me of my faults, of my future misdeeds, of the vitality of my own remorse, of my own _change_ in preventing a future in madness and in blood—yet you deny me _this_.”

“I deny you what you may one day use _against_ me,” Harry breathes, the heat of Tom’s eyes leaving him quivering.  “Or whatever self may thrive in this world.”

“I will use _nothing_ against you,” Tom shakes him.  “Don’t you understand?  Nothing will slight you.  No one will _touch_ you.”

Harry shoves Tom away.  “You _cannot_ promise me that.”

“Shall I make an Unbreakable?” Tom asks, almost desperate as Harry climbs from the bed and away from him.  “I will make it.  Any vow you need of me, I will make it, Harry.”

Letting out a soft sound of aggravation, Harry scrubs a hand over his face, then up into his hair.  He paces from the bed, in need of distance, and keeps his back turned to Tom.

He will not look at him right now.  He doesn’t think he could manage to deny him; the hours too early and Tom too earnest.

“ _Why_ must you know?” he asks.  “Why _now_?”

“I need to _understand_ , Harry.”  Tom replies.  “I need to know _why_ I’m so drawn to you.  I need to know _why_ I _care_ for you when I have not bothered to care for anyone since I was a boy.”

Harry covers his mouth with a hand.

“We are _connected_ ,” Tom breathes, not moving from the bed.  “I need to know how.  I need to know _why_.  And I only have you until likely the next sunrise.”

The room is quiet.  Harry’s heart beats fast in his chest. 

This is not how he wanted to spend his last day with Tom.  He had wanted to enjoy it, enjoy Tom, before it was lost to him forever.  He had wanted Tom’s curiosity; his genius.  Not his desperation.

“I do not want to care for you, yet I _do_.” Tom’s voice wavers.  “And you will be taken from me by magic I _cannot_ control.  Please, Harry.”

Harry’s eyes press shut tight.

“ _Please_.”

“I don’t know if it’s—“ Harry sighs, fingers drawing through his hair until it stands on end.  “It may not be connected—the connection I once shared with Voldemort and the… _draw_ you have felt toward me.”

Harry turns slow.  Tom is watching him from the bed.  Regarding him with an odd, quiet hopefulness.

“Nor do I know if it explains the draw I feel for you.”

Tom sucks in a sharp breath, satisfaction flaring in his gaze.  “We are both each other’s thrall.”

“That’s one way to put it,” Harry admits, tone dry, gaze dropping; unable to look at him. 

“And the connection?”

“I am—I _was_ Lord Voldemort’s—“ Harry’s words hitch, eyes darting everywhere and anywhere but Tom before finally he looks to him.  “I was your horcrux.”

The silence that follows is stifling.  Harry feels as though he may suffocate with it.

Tom stares at him.  Lips parted, eyes wide, staring at Harry as if he is something he has never seen before.

Harry fidgets.

“My—?”

“Horcrux, Tom.” Harry snaps, feeling suddenly agitated, feeling irritation rush through him as he pulls Tom’s ring—the Gaunt ring—free from his hand to hold it out.  “Just like _this_.  _Just_ like your journal.  _Just_ like the diadem.  Just like the locket, Helga’s cup, _Nagini_.  _I_ was a horcrux.”

Tom will not stop staring.

“I was _your_ horcrux.”  Harry feels sick.  “And for _that_ , I had to die.”

Harry’s hand drops; he’s trembling.  He does not like to talk about his death.  It makes him feel cold.  It makes him feel tired.  Head hanging, he lets out a tremendous breath.  Across from him, Tom finally moves.

Hands take him by the arms, pull him close, press him into a warm chest.  Harry does not move.  Tom kisses his temple anyways.  His fingers card gently through Harry’s hair.

“Were you frightened?”

“Yes.”

Tom hums.  “You’re so brave.”

Harry attempts to push from him, face twisting in indignation.  “Don’t _patronize_ me—“

“Hush,” Tom tells him and catches his hands, steadying them before slipping the ring Harry is still clutching back onto Harry’s finger.  “You _are_ brave.  Brave, and stupid, and kind.”

Harry falters.

“Come,” Tom beckons, already leading him by the hand toward the bathroom.  “I’ve upset you again.  You need to relax.  It’s my birthday, after all.”

Befuddled, Harry follows.

* * *

 

They do not talk.  Not until Tom has drawn them a bath.  Not until they are both bare, both on opposite ends of the lavish tub, warming up from the morning cold in water that smells of lavender and cloves. 

“Better?” Tom asks.

Harry frowns over at him, slipping deeper into the water.  “Why did you wake me with Parseltongue?”

“Previous bedmates found it appealing.  Arousing, even.” Tom shrugs a shoulder, arms spread along the lip of the tub, his foot nudging at Harry’s leg.  “I thought, perhaps, it might arouse you enough for a repeat performance of yesterday’s frottage.”

Harry’s face burns.  He lifts a quiet brow.

Tom sighs.  “And I _may_ have noticed how you understood it in a handful of the memories you shared with me.”

“So you wanted proof.”

“Yes.”

“And you thought surprising me with it in the early morning was the best idea?”

“…yes.  Such a coincidence could not be ignored.”  Tom’s mouth thins, almost like he’s embarrassed by the tact, or lack thereof, of his wakeup call.  “Not considering our… connection.”

“There _is_ no connection,” Harry insists.  “An attraction, yes.  An empathy, certainly.  But I am _not_ your horcrux anymore.”

Tom’s eyes _burn_.  He leans closer in the tub, a hand darting beneath the surface to catch Harry by the ankle.  Even in the dim, near romantic, light of the bathroom, Harry can see determination in Tom’s features.  It is an admittedly good look on him when not accompanied by bloodlust.

“Our _souls_ have _touched_ , Harry Potter.” Tom pulls Harry’s foot close, into his lap, thumbs digging into the sole and earning a pleased but startled gasp.  “While there may no longer be a piece of myself _in_ you—though, I would happily change that the moment you ask, in a much more _physical_ interpretation of the phrase—our souls _know_ one another.  You cannot deny that.”

“What are you--?” Harry’s blush burns up to his earns, down his neck, and Tom coaxes a moan from him as he kneads at Harry’s foot with deft fingers.

“My soul, in some time and place, in some capacity or the other, has been _entwined_ with yours, Harry.”  Tom continues, voice low; inviting, even.  “If that is not a connection, I do not know what is.”

Shuddering, Harry bites the inside of his cheek.

“You were my _horcrux_ ,” Tom says, rough and quiet, tugging Harry closer across the tub.  “You were my _soul_.”

“That is not _all_ I am.” Harry insists with a displeased frown, gripping at the edges of the tub to halt the easy way Tom is drawing him close.

Tom laughs, pushing forward, catching up the space between them in a singular, graceful motion.  He catches Harry by the waist, pulling him flush.  The steam rolling off the water fogs Harry’s glasses.  Tom takes them off, kissing each of Harry’s eyelids as they flutter closed.

Setting, or perhaps dropping, his glasses somewhere, Tom takes Harry by the jaw again.  His other arm is wrapped around Harry’s middle, keeping him close.  He finds a place between Harry’s thighs, drawing Harry into his lap.  When Harry pushes at his shoulders, Tom does not relent, and water sloshes over the edge of the tub onto the floor.

Lips press to Harry’s brow, then his cheek, then his mouth.  Harry makes a sound—perhaps a distressed one—and Tom swallows it.  When Harry pushes again, Tom stops but does not release him.  His breath is hot on Harry’s face, and Harry is wholly overwhelmed by the tantalizing rush of skin on skin and his own frustration with the man insistent on holding him so close.

“I am _not_ your horcrux, Tom.”

“No,” Tom kisses the corner of his mouth.  “You’re _everything_.  You’re my _soul_ , Harry.”

“ _What_?”

“Even without a piece of my soul inside of you, you call to me.  You help me.”  Tom smiles, practically beaming.  “You’re kind when anyone else in your position would be cruel.  I tried to kill you and you—you tried to _teach me_.  You’ve tried to _better_ me.”

Harry stills, hands resting at Tom’s shoulders, blinking owlishly down at Tom’s blurred features.

“You’ve touched my soul, Harry.”  Tom repeats.  “You are my everything.”

“That’s—“ Harry shakes his head, lips pursing.  “You’re _mad_.  That’s absurd.”

“Yes,” Tom hums, kissing him again chastely.  “But, to me, it is _true_.”

Harry has no words for him.  No denials.

It is not his claim to deny.

So when Tom kisses him again, Harry parts his lips and moans.  Because his heart is racing, pounding in his chest and his head.  Because Tom has all but said he loves him, and Harry cannot bare to hear it if he is to leave Tom.  Because he wants to hear it so badly.

Tangling his fingers into Tom’s damp hair, Harry presses close.  Beneath him, Tom groans and tugs Harry’s hips down so that the weight of him is settled in Tom’s lap more fully.  The hand at Harry’s jaw shifts, curling around the back of Harry’s neck.  Tom squeezes, angling his head so that he can lick into Harry’s hot, welcoming mouth.

Harry whines and shifts.  Tom coaxes his hips into movement and they rock, the rock, _they rock_ —all friction, all heat, until the both of them are breathless with it.

“You’re my everything,” Tom whispers when they part, foreheads resting together.

Tom grasps their lengths where they are pressed, rubbing between them.  It takes an embarrassing three strokes for Harry to come, crying out as he does.  Tom quickly follows suit.

Panting and burning, they rest together, tangled up in one another.  Somewhere between one breath and the next, Harry realizes just how far he has fallen.

* * *

 

“You’ve gone quiet again,” Tom sighs later, as if he’s put out by that fact, as they’re getting dressed.

Harry falters, towel scrubbing through his hair, pressed slacks undone and hanging low on his hips.  “Have I?” he asks.

“You’re still upset.”

Harry sighs, looking his way.  “Why does it matter?”

“You’re not going to try and deny it?”

Cheeks puffing out, Harry tosses his towel aside and buttons up his trousers.  “No.  Because talking about those things—about my death, about being a horcrux, about _sacrificing_ myself to save whatever remained of the people I love is not _easy_.  In fact, it’s highly upsetting and I didn’t want to discuss it in the first place.”

The clipped tone is enough to give Tom pause.  His fingers still where he’s buttoning up his shirt, and he stares at Harry.  It seems to always throw Tom when Harry prickles.  As if he is simultaneously shocked and awed by the volatility of him.

Harry wonders if it is because no one treats Tom the way Harry does, or if it is something else.  He wonders if someone had treated Tom like a human being _before_ now if this entire mess could have been avoided.

Because it _is_ a mess.  A mess that has _always_ fallen into Harry’s lap in some form or another.  And now there is more than compassion in Harry’s heart.  Now there is something stronger that is accompanied by _pain_ because when the sun comes up, when the New Year begins, he will be gone and Tom will be alone.  He aches for the both of them and hates it.

“But here we are,” Harry gestures between them, agitation fading into something a lot more resigned.

“Because I pushed.”

“Yes.”

“I did not mean to upset you.”

“It doesn’t matter what you _meant_ to do.”  Harry frowns.  “You _did_.”

Grimacing, Tom paces across the room to stand before him.  “Then I’m sorry.”

“Are you?”

“That I upset you,” Tom nods and reaches for Harry, taking his face between his hands.  “Not that you told me.  _Knowing_ what you are after _feeling_ it—“

“ _Tom_ ,” Harry pulls back, something heavy weighing upon him.  “I am _more_ than just a vessel for a piece of your soul—“

“ _I know_.”  Tom catches him by the shoulders, grip so strong it hurts, frustration bleeding into his expression.  “I’ve _told_ you what you are to me.”

“Because I was your horcrux—“

“ _No_.” Tom’s jaw flexes, that same arresting tick that Harry found so appealing the first day.  “Even before I knew—Even if you _weren’t_ , you would still be everything I am not.  Everything that I could be.  _Everything_.”

“That doesn’t make any _sense_ —“

“You don’t understand.  I cannot destroy you, even if I wanted to.  You have bested me in this world and in yours.”  Tom’s fingers dig in to the muscle of Harry’s arms, and Harry searches Tom’s desperate face.  “If not my better, you are my equal.  You have bewitched me, body and soul.”

“Tom—“

Hauling Harry close, Tom kisses him, perhaps only to silence his protests.  Harry’s fingers bunch up into the material of Tom’s shirt.  Tom licks his way past the part of Harry’s lips, past his teeth, into the heat of his mouth.  Tom kisses Harry like a man starved.  Like a man afraid.  Harry cannot push him away.

He wants this just as bad.  Is just as terrified.

Fingers tangle into Harry’s hair where it is still damp at the back of his head.  Blunt nails drag over his scalp, and Harry groans and presses forward.  Tom’s other hand is hot, near scalding against Harry’s skin as it slips round to his back and down his spine.  Harry arches, their bodies knocking flush from shoulder to thigh.

Tom tugs lightly, angling Harry’s head back, dipping deeper into Harry’s mouth.  Harry clutches at his shirt, trembling, another soft mewl thrumming between their lips.  The sound is echoed in a hum.  When they part, Harry’s face is warm and Tom’s breath is hitching.

“I pity the man that lived without your lips,” Tom croaks. 

Harry clears his throat.  “You do seem to have formed quite an attachment to them.”

“Well, they’re _yours_.” Tom smiles, the hand in Harry’s hair curling away in order to catch Harry’s chin, thumb dragging over the full curve of Harry’s lower lip.  “And I—“

Tom falters, frowns, and withdraws.  Mouth dry, Harry waits, the space that forms between them is miniscule.

“I believe I—“ Tom’s nose wrinkles and he looks away.  “I…”

“You…?”  Harry’s throat feels tight.

A façade slides into place.  “I cannot wait to show you off at tonight’s party.  We’ll stay until the New Year begins.  Then we’ll come back and—“

“And wait for sunrise to whisk me away?” Harry asks.  “Or whenever it is the magic decides to kick me back to my time.”

Tom sighs.  “I do _not_ want you to go.”

“I—“ Harry hesitates.  “I wish I could stay too.”

Tom’s smile is bright and brilliant.  He kisses Harry again.  It lingers, a gentle and sweet thing.  Then it is gone.

“But I don’t belong here,” Harry confesses.

Tom nods, carding his fingers through Harry’s hair.  “I know.”

They stay in one another’s arms for a moment longer.  Tom kisses Harry’s scar.

“Do you forgive me for earlier?”

“Perhaps.”

Tom hums.  “Perhaps I ought to make it up.  Big breakfast?  I’ll have Dawley make us something special.”

“Are you trying to bribe me with food, Mr. Riddle?”

“Absolutely.”

Grinning, Harry nods.  “Do your worst.”

* * *

 

Despite the mirror’s praise, Harry feels more than discomfited in his fancy new dress robes.  The green is deep, near black, and it is impossibly soft to the touch.  Harry doesn’t want to think about how much they probably cost.

He steps out of his rooms, fidgeting with his robes on his way down the stairs.  When he arrives at the bottom, he turns to the foyer, and stops upon seeing Tom.  Harry slows, taking him in.  Unlike Harry, Tom appears perfectly at home in his formal wear.  It falls over his broad shoulders elegantly and fits across his chest as it was tailored to do so. 

He thinks he looks young.  He thinks he looks beautiful.  He hopes Tom will stay this way when he is gone.

“Harry,” Tom peers over at him, eyes dark and smile crooked.  “I’m almost tempted to keep you locked up here, with me, so that I need not share you with anyone else.”

Harry chuckles.  “Well, I wouldn’t complain.  I rather dislike these sort of things.”

“Attend them often?”

“I’ve been to one too many charity balls already.”  Harry nods and strides over.  “I defeated the Dark Lord.  Didn't you know?”

Tom takes his hand, lacing their fingers in a movement so easy that it feels as through their hands belonged like that.  “Defeated one and seduced another.”

Face burning, Harry frowns.  “I did not _seduce_ you.”

“Perhaps you didn’t mean to.  Makes it all the more interesting that you did.”

* * *

 

Abraxas Malfoy looks  _absurdly_ like Draco.  Harry is struck by the similarities upon first introduction, shaking the man’s hand as Tom introduces them over the low, brassy tune the orchestra is playing in the ballroom. 

“When Tom said he would be bringing someone with him, I hadn’t expected such a _lovely_ creature.”  Abraxas smirks, and Harry can see where Lucius gets it.

“Hands to yourself, Malfoy.”  Tom warns with a good natured air that Harry sees right through. 

Laughing, Abraxas clasps a hand over Tom’s shoulder and squeezes.  “Happy to see the long winter hasn’t ruined your _humor_ , Riddle.”

“Whatever are you implying?”

“Nothing, my friend, nothing at all.” Abraxas looks to Harry, waggling his brows in such an animated and playful manner that Harry is struck by the difference between this man and the Malfoys he’s so familiar with.  “How in Merlin did you get yourself tangled up with this grouch?”

Harry snorts.  “To be honest, he practically kidnapped me.”

Tom blinks down at him, the faintest wrinkle of his nose the only other tell of his surprise at Harry’s blunt tongue.  But at his side, Abraxas laughs again and shakes Harry’s hand jovially. 

“Oh, very good.”  He grins and nudges Tom, who bares it with a tight smile.  “Got your hands full with this one, Riddle.  Thought I’d never see the day someone could match your wit.”

“Match and beat,” Harry quips, though his gaze is locked with Tom’s, finding bemused mirth there and offering Abraxas a polite smile.  “Though admittedly defeated more often than defeater.”

Chuckling, Abraxas pats Tom’s shoulder again.  “Keep an eye on this one, Riddle.  I might just try to snatch him up.  Or one of the Blacks will.”

Tom rolls his eyes.  “Your fiancée might object to that.”

“Speaking of,” Abraxas sighs.  “I believe I see her over by McNair suffering his Quidditch victories again.”

Tom and Abraxas share a look.

“Better go save her,” Abraxas withdraws.  “Enjoy the celebration.  There’ll be cake for you later, Riddle.  Though I know you’ll hate it.”

“I always do.”

Abraxas leaves them.  Harry lets out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.  Fingers lace with his, and Tom pulls Harry toward the ballroom.  Biting the inside of his cheek, Harry follows.

At the main table, centered at the head, Tom stops and sheds his outer cloak.  Harry follows suit, humming when he spots their name cards, his own initials emboldened in silver on a black rectangle floating to the right of Tom’s seat.  He plucks it out of the air, turning it over in his fingers before Tom distracts him with a gentile cough.

“Your friends are interesting,” Harry comments.

“They’re dogs,” Tom grunts, leaning his weight onto his hands as he braces against the back of a chair.  “And they’re hardly my friends.”

“Malfoy seems friendly enough,” Harry muses, brow furrowing.  “Though, admittedly, a bit flirtatious.  Reminds me of Ministry officials kissing arse at charity galas.”

“An accurate assessment,” Tom hides a laugh against a hand before reaching for Harry, taking Harry’s hands in his.  “And Abraxas is a loyal follower and a powerful resource.”

“Followers,” Harry rolls his eyes, shuffling along as Tom pulls him away from their all but deserted table and toward the very busy ballroom floor.  “Ridiculous.”

“The Knight of Walpurgis are no mocking matter,” Tom chides.

Harry guffaws, laughter loud even in the den of noise of dancing and mingling witches and wizards.  “The knights of _what_?”

“As if that’s any more absurd than _Death Eaters_ ,” Tom huffs.  “Now stop laughing and come dance with me.”

Harry instantly stalls.  “Absolutely _not_.”

“Not fond of dancing?”

“Not since the Yule Ball my fourth year.”

Tom’s eyes narrow, as if taking it as a personal challenge.  “Perhaps you just haven’t had the right partner.”

“ _Tom_ —“ Harry’s protests die as Tom sweeps him into the crowd that parts for them.

* * *

 

The winter night is bliss against Harry’s skin as he pulls Tom out into the vast gardens of the Malfoy manor.  The moon is high and bright, the stars a mess of scattered light across the immense dark of the sky.  It paints the garden in a haze of blue and violet.  Despite the snow, there are white roses in perpetual bloom.

Harry laughs when he sees them, breath fogging as he trails away from Tom and the glass door that leads to the ballroom. He touches the soft petals with his fingertips, the night a relief as he walks along the neat gravel paths, Tom following close behind him.  The music tries to follow them too, but as they draw further away, the music and crowd goes quiet. 

Careful fingers dance along a long stem, plucking a rose deftly from the bushes.  Harry brings it up, inhaling the saccharine scent of ivory petals, casting a sly look back at Tom, the green of his eyes bright.  There is a light about them, something burning that is matched by Tom’s own hungry gaze, that has been building through dinner, through drink, through dance after dance after dance.

Tom’s grin is a lopsided one.  His hair, usually so well kept, is disheveled from all of the celebrating.  He looks roguish and charming, like some dark hero from a Bronte novel, staring at Harry like that, with his robes hanging open to reveal the dress clothes beneath it so carelessly like that.

He reaches for a rose of his own, though he is not near quick enough, the thorns catching the tips of his fingers before he can pluck a flower free.  Frowning, he pulls his hand back, blood welling.

“Have to be fast about it,” Harry tells him.  “They’re enchanted.”

Tom’s eyes are dark when he regards Harry again.  “And how would you know that?”

"Narcissa Malfoy, Draco’s mother,” Harry draws near, taking Tom’s hand in his, rose dangling from his other.  “I insured that the both of them be put on probation for their part in the war, rather than be sent to Azkaban the way Lucius was.  Kept their wands from being snapped.”

Tom grunts, watching Harry whisper away the prick on his finger, watching Harry kiss away the blood. 

“In reward, I was invited to a handful of tea sessions.  The roses in the garden don’t change in sixty years.  Neither do the peacocks.”  He gestures to the white birds where they hover at the entrance of a hedge maze.

Humming, Tom curls his fingers round Harry’s.  “And who taught you the trick to plucking them?”

“Seeker reflexes,” Harry smiles, lifting the rose and tucking it into the pocket of Tom’s shirt, over his heart.  “I saw Draco do it one day and followed suit.”

“Are you certain he’s not your lover?” Tom frowns.

“Positive,” Harry huffs with a fond roll of his eyes.  “Why?  Jealous?”

“The thought of someone else touching you makes my blood boil.”

Harry blinks a number of times.  “Oh.”

“Are you surprised?”

“Yes,” Harry says, then frowns.  “Well… no.  But—“

“ _Riddddlllleeeee_!” A twittering, young Walburga calls out into the gardens.  “The countdown is about to begin!”

Tom curses, pulling Harry toward the hedge maze.  The peacocks squawk as they flutter out of the way, and Harry follows, laugh catching in his throat as Walburga calls after them.  They dart through the entrance, down the narrow path, rounding one corner and then another, hiding just inside. 

Tom presses Harry back against the brush when he thinks they’re far enough in, leafs catching at Harry’s robes and in his hair.  Grinning, Tom hushes Harry’s mirth with a hand, though he has to fight back his own laughter as a handful of his old classmates call for the two of them, slurring their names, decidedly drunk.  Tom presses flush to Harry, their breath quiet but labored as they wait. 

In the distance, there’s a loud _pop_.

“Merlin’s left tit!” Abraxas curses even as others coo.  “Too early!  They’re going off too early!”

Green and silver lights explode in the sky.  Harry laughs against Tom’s palm, eyes gleaming behind his spectacles as their features are cast in shades of emerald.

Shaking his head, Tom leans forward and rest his forehead against Harry’s.  “They’re idiots.”

“It’s sort of wonderful,” Harry says as Tom’s hand drops away.

Their fingers tangle.  “ _You’re_ wonderful.”

“Tom,” Harry chides, attempting a scolding look but expression far too gentle.  “I fear to hope you’re going soft on me.”

“I am soft on you,” Tom brushes Harry’s fringe aside, then tipping his face up by the chin.  “In fact, I—“

Another round of _pops_ and _bangs_.  Another shower of light.

Tom stares down at Harry, horror twisting his features.  His brows pinch, drawn troubled over stormy eyes.  He pulls back a bit, if only to regard Harry better.  Wetting his lips, he eases his hand over Harry’s jaw, angling his face up further, as though to take his features in completely and permanently.

There is something a lot like fear in Harry’s chest.  A lot like hope.  It pounds away under the cage of his ribs.  He feels like this had been mounting all day, and that with the clock ticking down for the New Year, there is no more avoiding it or the heartbreak that will follow.

“I want—“ Tom scowls, thumb brushing over Harry’s cheek, swallowing past something in his throat.  “I want to love you, Harry Potter.”

Something burns at the back of Harry’s own throat.  “But?”

“I fear I do not _feel_ love.  I fear that this pain in my chest, this rapid beating of my heart, is nothing but frivolity.” Tom admits, tone sharp around the words.  “This longing I feel for you… I fear it will fade.  I do not want it to.  I do not want to lose you after having just found you.”

Harry swallows heavily.

“I want to love you, Harry.” Tom whispers, laying a fleeting kiss to Harry’s lips.

“What--?” Harry breathes.  “What is love to you?”

“An emotion,” Tom says.  “A weakness.”

“Love is a _choice_ , Tom.” Harry reaches up, knuckles brushing gentle at his cheek.  “I told you once that I was given opportunities you weren’t and made decisions you didn’t.”

In the distance, a countdown begins.  The sky is alight with fireworks.

“One of those decisions was love,” Harry says.  “I _chose_ love, Tom.”

“I don’t understand.”

Lips pressing thin, Harry takes Tom’s face between his hands, as if to will him the comprehension he doesn’t hold for such delicate emotions.  “Our tragedies are so similar, Tom.  But we’re different.  Do you know why?”

“No,” Tom confesses.

“Because when you were a boy, you picked fear.  You picked fear and anger and hate because you knew of nothing else.”  Harry’s expression pinches, thinking about the boy, the orphan who Tom had been, the loneliness he’d felt, the way he’d grown into that loneliness and hid it under a severe callousness.  “And when I was a boy, I was told my mother gave her life to save mine.  I was told it was for love, and I realized love is more powerful than I could ever know.  So powerful it could defeat death.”

Tom’s brows draw together.

“I knew of love.”  Harry smiles.  “And so I picked it.  I _chose_ to love—my friends, my family, and the memory of all those who had loved me before I could know them.  I could have picked hate.  Or fear.  Or anger.  But I didn’t because I knew what love could do and how _wonderful_ it could be.  So I chose to love.  Unabashedly.  Unrepentantly.  And do you know what happened?”

Tom shakes his head, voice breathy and awed as he leans into Harry’s touch.  “No.”

“It made me _strong_.”

The countdown grows louder.  More frantic.  The New Year is coming. 

“Do you think I could be strong?” Tom asks, hopeful and hushed.

“If you want to.”

Tom draws Harry close by the waist.  “I want to.”

“Then choose,” Harry whispers.

Tom kisses him.  In his chest, Harry’s heart pounds.  He drapes his arms over Tom’s shoulders and cants his head as they press flush.  Beyond the maze, people hail in the New Year, the new day, with shouts and cheers and drinks.

When they part, Harry offers a tentative smile.  “Happy birthday, Tom.”

“Happy New Year, Harry.”

* * *

 

They did not linger at Malfoy manor for much longer, much to the chagrin of Tom’s many followers.  Tom makes their excuses and has to practically drag Harry off when the party attempts to sway them to stay.  He gets quite huffy about the whole thing, snipping at anyone who attempts to stop them when his usual charm fails.  Harry would find it amusing if he didn’t want to take their leave equally as much.  He doesn’t know how much longer he has left, but he knows he doesn’t want to spend it surrounded by strangers.

When they finally make it back to Tom’s home, something like melancholy settles over the both of them.  Dawley snaps off to make them tea, and Harry has to excuse himself for a moment to go change out of his dress robes.  Though he looks like he wants to, Tom does not protest.  He nods when Harry goes. 

He finds Tom in the parlor when he’s done.  He’s standing with his back to the door, staring down into the slow burn of the fire in the hearth.  He’d discarded his robe, and it lays over the back of the settee.  Tom remains in his dress clothes, sleeves rolled carefully up, hands tucked into his pockets.

Harry hovers in the door, dressed the same way he’d been when he first arrived, with his sweater and his robe draped neatly over one arm.  His wand is tucked away with the soft _tick, tick, tick_ of the orb counting down his last hours, minutes, seconds.  Each moment seems precarious.  In his hand, he holds Tom’s ring, the Stone humming in quiet recognition against the cage of his fingers.

The floorboards creek when he shifts.  Tom turns about, brows up, face expectant.  He frowns upon seeing Harry there, so ready to leave, and Harry sees his jaw twitch as he grinds his teeth.

“Don’t know when it’ll consider the night over,” Harry shrugs.  “Figured I should be ready.”

Tom seems to hesitate.  “You’d be miserable here.  Without the ones you love.”

“Not miserable,” Harry shakes his head, padding closer.  “But we both know I don’t belong here.”

“You could.”

“Tom,” Harry sighs.

Tom strides over, hands coming up to grip Harry by the shoulders.  “I know.  I don’t—It’s not as if we can do anything about it.  There isn’t enough time for me to be selfish, but I—I _am_ a selfish man, Harry.”

Wetting his lips, Harry nods.  “I know.”

“You’re the first person I’ve ever—“

“ _I know_ ,” Harry’s mouth twitches into a sad smile, offering the ring up with trembling fingers.  “But I don’t need to be the only person.”

Tom frowns down at it.  He takes the ring, then Harry’s hand, and slides it back onto his finger.

“You keep trying to give this back when I want you to keep it.”  Tom mutters. 

Harry falters.  “Tom.  No.”

“Yes,” he presses a chaste kiss to Harry’s knuckles. 

“You don’t know what—Tom, it isn’t a good idea for me to—“

“It’s the one selfish thing I can ask of you.”  Tom insists.  “Put it away in a vault, if you have to.”

“And if I have to destroy it?”

Tom frowns, shoulders sagging.  “Do you think you’ll have to?”

“I don’t—“ Harry stares at the ring, listens to the gentle way it whispers, no screaming or squealing or screeching.  “I don’t know.  I don’t think so.  But if I have to—“

“I know.” Tom nods.  “I wouldn’t wish him upon you.  But I am not him.”

“You’re not,” Harry nods.  “Nor will you be.”

Tom pauses.  “You believe that?”

Harry searches his face, eyes roaming Tom’s delicate features.  “I do.”

Hand slipping up from Harry’s shoulder, Tom curls his fingers around to press at Harry’s nape.  Harry shuffles closer, head tipping back.  Their mouths slant together, perfect and simple.  A sweet kind of heat sparking between them the way it always seems to.

It was as though fate crafted them to fit like this.  Warmth coils low in Harry’s belly.  He curls his fingers into the soft material of Tom’s shirt.  One kiss ends, only for another to begin.  Lips part lips, and their tongues meet in a languid familiarity. 

They part slow.  Harry’s mouth is red and wet, and Tom takes his face in a hand, expression soft as he drags his thumb over Harry’s lower lip. 

“You’ve still so much you could teach me,” he says.

Harry’s eyes flutter open.  “Not _so_ much.  But you’re smart.  You’ll figure it out.”

Something gleams in Tom’s eyes.  Something hard and determined.

“I wish we had more time,” he breathes and rests his forehead against Harry’s.  “You’re just going to disappear.  Like a dream.”

Grimacing, Harry pulls back, hesitating a moment before plucking the rose still tucked in Tom’s front pocket out and dropping it to the floor before lifting his sweater up and pulling it messily over Tom’s head.  Tom sputters, jerking as his hair sticks up from the static of wool running over it.

“What are you--?”

“So you know,” Harry says and gestures for Tom to slide his arms through the holes, the oversized jumper much more snug over Tom’s broader frame.  “That I wasn’t just a dream.”

He smooths the large, golden _H_ over Tom’s chest.  Tom blinks down at it, mouth opening and shutting a moment before he huffs out a laugh.

“It’s quite comfortable.”

“Yes,” Harry chuckles.  “Quite warm too.”

“I feel silly.”

“You look it.”

Tom reaches up, tangling his fingers into the mess of Harry’s hair and pulling.  “Such _cheek_.”

“You love it,” Harry grins and then wavers.

Tom inhales sharp, but nods all the same.  “I do,” he whispers and kisses the corner of Harry’s mouth, his nose, his left cheek.  “I do.  I do.  I do.”

“I will…” Harry’s throat is too tight, his eyes burn.  “I will miss you.”

In his pocket, the sphere stops ticking.  Harry’s heart lurches.

“I’ll miss you too.”  Tom whispers against his forehead, kissing there too.  “You’re my everything.  _You’re my everything_.”

Harry closes his eyes.  He aches.  There is a pull at his navel.  Then he knows no more.

* * *

 

Somewhere, another Harry Potter lives a better life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Only the epilogue left.


	8. surely you touched mine

I think we deserve  
a soft epilogue, my love.  
We are good people  
and we’ve suffered enough.

—           Nikka Ursula | _Seventy Years of Sleep # 4_

* * *

 

When Harry arrives back in his own time, in his own reality, it is hours just after the New Year’s midnight clock has finished chiming.  He lands in a heap, just before the hearth of the Burrow’s fireplace, the very same spot he’d disappeared from on Christmas.  He is breathless and trembling, a touch pale from the sudden and drastic pull, and he makes a clatter of noise when his knees give and he lands in a mess on the living room floor.

It’s Molly that finds him.  She comes bustling in from the kitchen and gasps in relief upon spotting Harry there.  Rushing over, she snatches up a blanket from the back of the couch and drapes it around Harry’s shoulders as his teeth chatter.  By the time she’s done checking him over, the other occupants of the house have stumbled downstairs or piled in through the kitchen.

“I _told you_ he’d be right as rain!” Fred crows, but George is quick to elbow him. 

Hermione and Ron look harried as they weasel by in order to get to him.  As Hermione throws her arms over his shoulders, Harry grunts and rubs a slow circle over her back.

He shares a look with Ron, who hovers only a second longer before diving forward and pulling the both of them into his arms.  Hermione laughs, teary eyed, and pulls back just enough to cup Harry’s cheeks with her hands and look over him.

“We were so worried when we couldn’t find you,” she tells him.  “The twins said you’d be—but, _oh_ , we were so worried.”

Harry breathes out a weak laugh.  “I’m okay.”

On the far wall, a clock with their faces on it shifts.  Harry goes from _safe_ and _lost_ , to _safe_ and _home_. 

Hermione purses her lips, still searching his face.  “But you’re not, are you?” she asks.

Harry’s throat works.  His eyes burn.

A large hand, Ron’s hand, rubs back and forth over his shoulders.  “It’s okay, mate.  It’s alright.”

Harry cries.

* * *

Summer is sweltering.  It hadn’t started that way—only reaching the twenties at the peak of June—but by the time mid-July rolled around, the temperature had consistently climbed into the high thirties during the day.  Even with cooling charms, Harry has been suffering the heat, leaving many of his tasks (see: cleaning out the rooms of Grimmauld Place bit by bit) for early morning or late afternoon nearer to evening if only to avoid the woozy way the heat leaves him tired and sweaty.  Even Kreacher is moving with an air of hazy sluggishness.

That’s why, come noon on the Monday before his birthday, Harry is doing nothing but lazing about on the cool hardwood floors of Grimmauld Place’s sitting room.  He’s got an old record dragging on a turntable in the corner, a slow rock tune filling the space as he presses a wet cloth to his forehead if only to keep from baking alive.  There’s a book propped open on his chest that he’s halfheartedly reading; his shirt is rolled up and under his neck, tilting his head up, leaving him in nothing more than a pair of ratty old jeans.

On a desk at the far side of the room, placed in front of a window that peers out into the miniscule garden in the back, there is a stack of unopened letters.  Next to it is the morning’s _Prophet_ and a half scratched reply to Minister Kingsley’s invitation to join the Auror’s academy come the end of the summer.  The _Prophet_ boasts some headlining fluff expose on Harry’s most recent nonexistent romantic exploit and a picture of Harry leaving a new shop in Diagon Alley with Draco Malfoy at his side.  The letter contains a number of different polite declinations to join up with the academy and a single request for a year to consider the offer and give him some time to explore other areas of work and of the world before he makes such a decision.

He’s still unsure whether or not he’ll send it.  It’s something he and Ron have bickered about after Ron had found out about his doubts.  Though it is nothing a pint or two didn’t easily fix.

Around Harry’s neck, a gold chain hangs with a ring dangling from it.  It rests comfortably at the center of Harry’s chest.  Sometimes, at night, it whispers to him.  Today it is quiet.  Perhaps just as stifled by the heat as Harry is.

In the fireplace, light flares, and a prim voice clears their throat.  Harry turns over, propping himself up.

“Harry, dear.”  Molly Weasley smiles at him through the embers and the ash.  “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

“No,” Harry smiles, tugging his shirt, wrinkled as it is, over his head.  “What can I do for you, Mrs. Weasley?”

“Really, Harry.” Molly chides.  “You should know better by now.”

“Sorry,” Harry grins.

“It’s quite alright, dear.” Molly assures.  “Do you—Do you have a moment?”

Brows pinching, Harry shuffles forward.  “Of course.  What is it?”

“I think it’d be best if you saw for yourself.  Do you mind popping over?” she asks.

“Not at all.  Give me just a moment.”

“Of course, dear.”

* * *

 

Harry had told Ron and Hermione everything that had happened during his disappearance over the holidays.  While at first Ron had gotten very quiet, it had been him that had nodded, clapped Harry on the shoulder, and told him that he understood.  Hermione had taken a bit longer, had gone all pensive and hushed, before taking Harry’s hand in hers, offering a smile, and kissing Harry’s cheek with such a sweet chasteness that it left Harry aching.

They’d slept in the same room the night he returned, and for three nights after it, before they were finally comfortable being apart again.  Upon returning to Hogwarts for the spring term, they had been as eerily close as they had been toward the end of the war.  The separation, as always, only seemed to make them grow stronger, to make them grow closer, to make them further inseparable. 

So when Harry comes through the Weasley’s fireplace—a bit sweaty and dusted in ash—he longs for their support, for their security, upon seeing Tom standing there, red jumper casually slung over one shoulder, an odd sort of talisman dangling from his fingers, and a cocky grin on his face.  Harry very nearly buckles at the sight.

Tom beams despite the number of wands still trained upon him.  He’s got lines he didn’t have around his eyes and mouth.  His hair looks like it may be shorter, more coifed, the style reminiscent of something Harry’d seen in an old 50s film.  Instead of the usual white dress shirt, he’s wearing something short sleeved and light blue, along with a pair of pressed khakis.  The shirt is tucked in, a thin belt holding his trousers up despite the perfect cut of them.  His shoes are brown leather, and there is a peak of blue argyle at his ankles. 

Harry feels rather faint.

“Tom,” he breathes.

Tom’s smile broadens.  “Hello, Harry.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who has been so supportive of this fic! It means the world to have such exuberant reactions to a story that I didn't think I could ever write the way I did in the time that I did it. 
> 
> It has been more than a blast! 
> 
> Kisses to all! <3 <3 <3


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